Have you ever sat down and looked at a pair of packs and a sealed deck to analyse them as a sealed deck? Well, that's what I'm going to do today - partially as an exercise for myself and partially as a way to look at a sealed deck.

A couple of main points to be made about this article; first off, I'm not 100% certain of everything in the deck here; the second is that I welcome criticism and input. I don't mind someone writing a reply article or telling me off for using a certain card - I am not claiming to be a flawless player! Lastly, I'm using real packs here, so hopefully these are a little more realistic than Netdraft is.

Opening the deck itself
Which way do you go? I always end up opening my starter first, and not my packs. I wonder if opening the packs might be better; the psychology behind it is that commons are just as important as the rares, but that as emotional creatures we become attached to our bomb rares, and don't view the colours evenly. Personally, I looked at the commons before looking at the rares, in the hope I might come out better.

So here are the contents of the starter deck's commons:

So, looking at the commons, what are your first thoughts looking at this pile of stuff? To me, Black and Red have the most depth, mostly by having the most cards. Red has two pieces of spell removal and two removal creatures. Black has Swat, Misery Charm, and Festering Goblin. Lots of Goblins make the crown of fury useful, and Shepherd of Rot has two good zombies to back him up, one of which has quality evasion.

White presents the middling colour here. Defender works nicely with the other two playable clerics, making them a little tougher. Dive Bomber offers you a little more evasion, and Sandskin functions well against the huge fatty bombs of Onslaught.

Looking at these pile of cards, you could probably build a playable deck without ever dipping into the uncommons or rares.

Note that I said playable, not good... But so far, things are looking strong!

So here we're looking at the uncommons. What stands out? Obviously, blue gets two solid creatures. The Shrieker is the better card, but the Graxiplon is likely fairly unblockable as well as being an easier splash. Black gets Infest, which adds to the already plentiful low-end removal. Infest is better than anything in the commons for that, though. Red gets two burn spells, the Flesh being a good finisher and works nicely with Shepherd of Rot. Chain of Plasma is too situational to be playable, especially in a deck with a lot of key weenies. Green doesn't get anything too good, and white gets two quality creatures. The Crusher isn't good, but at least it can reverse a Taunting Elf at times.

Finally, the rares: Jareth, Leonine Titan, Gangreous Goliath, and Polluted Delta. What do these cards signal? Jareth is a bomb, no doubt about that, and the Goliath also pulls us into white/black. The Delta makes splashing blue easier, although so far we don't know what we're splashing.

At this point, we've got a pretty solid black/white/red deck shaping up. Green has no depth and no bombs, and while blue has some decent evasion, it lacks other cards to make it stick. Do you agree?

Pack 1

Whew! Another bomb drops into our colours, assuming you're with me on the Red over Blue dealie. The Roost seems all right as a card for our (so far) third colour, red, as it comes out late enough that we don't mind it having RR in both its cost and activation. Skirk Commando attracts the eye - but it has too many red symbols to fit in nicely and sits where two other good cards in this back sit: Severed Legion and Gustcloak Harrier, which offer us two solid three-drops - assuming we can get over the nasty casting costs!

But this pack just ends up reinforcing our existing R/B/W mold, which is a bit disappointing (I am really opening these as I go).

Pack 2

This pack offers green a sudden surge of rock solid fat, plus two of the best black removal cards in the set. White gets nothing really useful, and red gets another erratic explosion. Standardize can kill"~ One" cards, but it's not a good card. Essence Fracture offers us a good way to delay Green's beastie assaults.

And speaking of which, wow! Look at that fat! Not one, not two, but a quality three beasts. The Tusker appeals to me the most, offering mana fixing and fat in one Warthoggy Package.

So where do we go from here? It's clear that Blue isn't a leading colour, as the last pack offered us the bombing power of a foil Essence Fracture. Big deal; it's not good when Blue is the splash colour. Green got, in my mind, too little too late. Groundshaker and Towering Baloth are powerful pieces of fat, but Groundshaker doesn't splash and red has a better game ender in Dragon Roast over either of them.

I end up going with white/black/red, with red being more of the splash colour. I don't expect this deck would often be able to use the cycling ability of Solar Blast, but that's alright with me.

The Deck

White creatures:
Jareth, Leonine Titan
Dive Bomber
Gustcloak Harrier
Gustcloak Sentinel
2 Daunting Defender
Disciple of Grace
Battlefield Medic

Black creatures:
Shepherd of Rot
2 Severed Legion
Nantuko Husk
Gangrenous Goliath

Red creatures:
Sparksmith
Nosy Goblin

Black Spells:
Cruel Revival
Death Pulse
Infest

Red spells:
2 Erratic Explosion
Solar Blast
Dragon Roost

Lands:
5 Mountains
6 Plains
6 Swamps
1 Secluded Steppe

Card choices

Secluded Steppe over swamp #7?
Some people might debate going for more plains over swamps. There are more two-symbol black cards than White ones, with the only multiple-symbol white cards being Jareth and Gustcloak Harrier. The question really becomes whether or not it's worth being able to more consistently cast the two Severed Legions over being able to cast the Harrier and Jareth. I personally feel that since Jareth will most likely stabilize the board or perhaps kill my opponent, being able to cast him when I see him is a good thing.

Erratic Explosion?
You may notice I did not use the Misery Charm or Festering Goblin, both of which have synergy with the other elements of the deck. The question is this; without them, I can rely on Explosion to deal at least two damage, which means I can safely aim it at the dome when I need to deal two, and kill */2 creatures without fear of wasting cards. I personally feel that the EE becoming cruddy Shocks or doing more on average to the opposing player is worth more than a 1/1 and the ability to recur/kill clerics or deal two life in damage.

Disciple of Grace?
It's good to get at least a few colourless cyclers in your deck to fix your mana. Protection from black means she's a generally useful card against some decks, and the cleric type means she can help with Goliath recursion should you need her to.

Nosy Goblin vs. Skirk Commando?
I don't know if I'm making the right choice here. The Nosy Goblin often enough doesn't work too effectively at actually killing morph creature, but it can give you insight into the level of risk the morph creature they're playing implies. On the other hand, the Commando is a sort of kill + body situation, although it's costly - but splashable - to use it like that. I will end up preferring the Nosy one, I think.

The deck has enough of the creature types it needs to for its tribal cards to function; lots of zombies and lots of clerics to do what you need to do. The one exception is the Sparksmith, but he's fine enough as is, adding to the kill power of Death Pulse and Infest.

So what do you think? Am I thinking too literally with my bombs, or is White / Red / Black what you would go with too? Did Green have enough depth, or blue? Would you have put the 1C cards in even though they weaken Erratic Explosion, would you even run Erratic Explosion at all?

I encourage you to make use of StarCityGames' forum, rather than mailing me. I'll be quite happy to debate points in the forum.

-Iain Telfer (Taeme)

* - For simplicity's sake, I count lands within the colour that activates them.

** - Foil. I point that out because I was reading the pack exactly as-is, in case anyone cares about the print runs.