Greetings, everybody.

I spent a while trying to find a reason as to why I write articles — I don't get paid, I don't get any positive comments from my local Magic community and I'm not really in the same league as many of the other writers at this site. So why would I keep writing? The reasoning is twofold. Firstly, I wish to improve as a Magic player and I have found that writing articles (even if they're casual articles, even if they're not published) is a very effective approach to self-analysis.

Secondly, well... I just like writing.

You could ask me why I like writing, but I've already used up an unreasonable amount of time thinking over that previous paragraph. Not to mention that you probably want me to get on with the actual strategy. Fair enough.

I hope I'm not treading on any toes by writing on a topic that The Ferrett will be tackling on a weekly basis, but I figure that, with the Guildpact pre-release coming up and the qualifier season for PT: Prague beginning, an extra article on the construction of sealed decks might be of some assistance. Not to mention the recent announcement on MagictheGathering.com that Limited Champs will be returning in June. Anyway, let's get to the card pool.

Red:
Barbarian Riftcutter
Indentured Oaf
Incite Hysteria
Molten Sentry
Rain of Embers
Smash
2 Torpid Moloch
2 Viashino Fangtail
Viashino Slasher
War-Torch Goblin

Red/White:
Lightning Helix
Razia, Boros Archangel

White:
Benevolent Ancestor
Conclave Equenaut
Courier Hawk
Devouring Light
Dromad Purebred
Faith's Fetters
Flickerform
Sandsower
Wojek Siren

Green/White:
Centaur Safeguard
2 Seeds of Strength

Green:
Bramble Elemental
2 Elves of Deep Shadow
Gather Courage
Golgari Brownscale
Ivy Dancer
Overwhelm
Scatter the Seeds
Siege Wurm

Black/Green:
Golgari Germination
Golgari Rotwurm
2 Shambling Shell

Black:
Brainspoil
Last Gasp
Mortipede
Netherborn Phalanx
Roofstalker Wight
Stinkweed Imp
Thoughtpicker Witch

Blue/Black:
2 Dimir Infiltrator
Lurking Informant
Perplex
Psychic Drain

Blue:
Compulsive Research
Flow of Ideas
Grayscaled Gharial
Halcyon Glaze
Mnemonic Nexus
Snapping Drake
Stasis Cell
Telling Time
2 Terraformer
2 Vedalken Entrancer
Zephyr Spirit

Lands/Artifacts:
2 Boros Garrison
Boros Signet
Dimir Signet
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Glass Golem
Sacred Foundry
Selesnya Sanctuary
Selesnya Signet
Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
Temple Garden

Typically I would run through the entire list and discuss the individual merits and/or shortcomings of each card, but I figure that this would likely be a waste of time — Ravnica has been out for a couple of months already, after all. Instead, I'll look at each colour in an attempt to decide what deck our pool would be most supportive of.

Red gives us some powerful cards in double Viashino Fangtail, and a reasonable Indentured Oaf. However, from here, the card quality drops dramatically and we find ourselves with a quite a few unimpressive creatures like Barbarian Riftcutter and Torpid Moloch. With the poor quality of the Red in Ravnica, we can't really be too surprised that we likely will not be running it — especially when this pool is offering us zero Galvanic Arc.

Of course, it is too hasty to be cutting Red without first looking at the Boros cards, which can often more than make up for the failings of Red in Ravnica. And here we find... Lightning Helix, an amazing removal spell, and Razia, an expensive but game-winning angel. Lightning Helix is a card I would consider splashing in any deck that can handle it, and Razia is a card I'd play if my deck was already heading in the direction of Red / White, but by the looks of things, Red isn't going to make the cut. A shame about those Fangtails, really.

Let's have a look at White then. Here we have the card that The Ferrett was recently professing his love for — Flickerform. While I appreciate that the card can be very effective, I can't see it doing anything special with a card pool lacking decent comes-into-play effects. Sandsower is a card which is conditionally amazing, but flicking through the cards reveals that our only token producers are a single Scatter the Seeds and a Golgari Germination. It's probably safe to cut that as well. And of course, let's not even look at the Dromad Purebred.

The rest of White gives us two powerful removal spells — Faith's Fetters and Devouring Light. Both of these are potentially splashable, although I am wary of that 1WW mana cost of the Devouring Light. What do you think? In a pool lacking mana fixers, would a removal spell with a double-mana commitment be playable? Next in the colour is Courier Hawk, a little flier that I'm never too unhappy to have on the team. And of course, Conclave Equenaut is very welcome also.

Wojek Siren is the kind of card that I rarely play with, although I do suspect I'm not giving it the credit it deserves. I understand it can be powerful in pumping swarms of Saprolings or a bunch of Boros attackers, but it just seems a little weak to me. Finally we have Benevolent Ancestor, the most recent incarnation of Samite Healer. This guy is a card I'm happy to see in my deck any time I'm playing White in Sealed. Sure, it can't effectively block the likes of Siege Wurm or Golgari Rotwurm, but did you really expect a three-mana card to be able to?

White has some potential, despite still being a little shallow for my liking. Looking over at the pickings in the Selesnya Conclave gives us double Seeds of Strength, a very versatile pump spell that can swing games by itself, and Centaur Safeguard, which is just one of those ‘filler' creatures that fill space in your mana curve and in your deck. This gives rise to the possibility of a base Green deck splashing for the double Seeds of Strength, Faith's Fetters and perhaps Devouring Light — depending on other colour commitments, etc.

The Green cards appear to have a depth that has been lacking in the other colours so far. All of the cards are cards that I have played before in drafts or other Limited events. Golgari Brownscale can be difficult to cast in certain decks, and even after this difficulty, is rather unimpressive. Ivy Dancer is obviously effective against the Green decks, but how good is it in the maindeck? Personally, I'm happy running the Ivy Dancer main if I have a few empty slots that I need to fill towards the end of deck-building.

Overwhelm is more powerful in a Selesnya deck and the Elves of Deep Shadow in a Golgari deck, but they are both effective cards that you can run in either. We also have Scatter the Seeds and Gather Courage, both cards I am pleased to see in the card pool. Of course, we can't forget our tag-team of Bramble Elemental and Siege Wurm, both very large creatures we'll be sleeving up if we decide to go Green. Given our Green cards, this is very likely.

Continuing in the same fashion, I'll look at the Golgari cards here. We have two of the versatile Shambling Shell and a large Golgari Rotwurm to beat down our opponent alongside our Bramble Elemental and Siege Wurm. Also of consideration is Golgari Germination — a card that I have not tried, but a card which could produce a stream of Saproling tokens in the right deck. What do you think? What kind of cards does it take to make Golgari Germination a strong card in a sealed deck? Anyway, like the Green cards, the Golgari cards are powerful also.

Let's see if we have some removal to go with our large guys. This pool doesn't disappoint, as it presents us with a Brainspoil and a Last Gasp. Also available are Stinkweed Imp, Mortipede and Netherborn Phalanx, all cards that would fit nicely alongside the cards we have in Green / Black. Roofstalker Wight and Thoughtpicker Witch are cards that are at their most effective in Dimir, but could potentially patch up a mana curve in other decks.

In Dimir, we have double Dimir Infiltrator which is capable for transmuting out Psychic Drain, also present in the pool. Perplex is here too, but isn't really a card I am too happy running. Finally, we have Lurking Informant, a card that shines in the late-game when you have mana free — being able to control your opponent's draws is a very powerful ability, after all. I think I initially overrated the Informant when I first played with Ravnica in a 40-card format, but it still has a role to play in many decks, even outside the mill deck.

Blue gives us Snapping Drake and Halcyon Glaze, both aggressive fliers in the right deck. However, there is very little in Blue as far as aggressive evasion is concerned. Looking at the other cards makes me feel as though a mill deck could be possible with our given card pool. Telling Time and Compulsive Research are both effective card advantage spells, and double Vedalken Entrancer could form the core of our mill strategy.

Finally, the pool offers us three Signets in varying colour combinations as far as mana acceleration is concerned. There is also Temple Garden and Selesnya Sanctuary to facilitate the White splash I was talking about earlier. We also have Svogthos as a late game creature in Green / Black, and Duskmantle as another milling card for Blue / Black, if we choose such a route.

A deck that I would consider building from this pool would be a G/B/w deck, like the following.

2 Elves of Deep Shadow
Lurking Informant
Roofstalker Wight
2 Shambling Shell
Centaur Safeguard
Stinkweed Imp
Mortipede
Bramble Elemental
Scatter the Seeds
Golgari Rotwurm
Siege Wurm
Netherborn Phalanx

Gather Courage
2 Seeds of Strength
Selesnya Signet
Dimir Signet
Last Gasp
Devouring Light
Faith's Fetters
Brainspoil

6 Forest
6 Swamp
2 Plains
Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
Temple Garden
Selesnya Sanctuary

The creature curve looks like:
1. ##
2. ##
3. ####
4. #
5. ###
6. #
7. #

To be honest, the deck doesn't feel right. I reasoned that the 1WW was acceptable, given the Signet and the two multilands — and also that, as a removal spell, it was alright to be holding the Devouring Light in hand for a few turns while you played out creatures. Still, I'm not sure if it's the best deck that could be built from the given card pool.

A different splash, this time for Blue, is also possible. I'm not sure if it's better, as Faith's Fetters, Devouring Light and Seeds of Strength are all great cards, but it does give us more creatures and also the alternate path to victory with our various milling cards. The list would look a little like the above, but with the following changes.

-1 Faith's Fetters
-1 Devouring Light
-2 Seeds of Strength
-1 Temple Garden
-1 Selesnya Sanctuary
-3 Plains

+1 Compulsive Research
+1 Telling Time
+2 Vedalken Entrancer
+1 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
+1 Snapping Drake
+3 Island

This configuration leaves us with only sixteen land, a number I'm not comfortable with, but with four mana accelerators, this should be reasonable.

Alternately, it might just be better to reconfigure the deck completely and consider making the mill side of the deck dominant. This would involve running the Dimir Infiltrators and the Psychic Drain over some cards in the above list and mixing around the mana base a little. However, I'm a little reluctant to try the mill path when our pool presents us with Rotwurm, Siege Wurm and the like.

Personally I feel that the G/B/u deck is more consistent with a mill strategy that can help you in those creature stalls that are so common in sealed formats. However, running Blue over White means that you no longer have access to the White removal spells in the pool, and you also lose the effective combat tricks in Seeds of Strength. Overall, I think I would probably run with the G/B/w build, as it has more power and the multilands help it iron out mana problems.

For those people chiming in on the forums, how would you have built this deck? Would a deck focussed on the milling strategy be better than a deck focussed on beating down with large green and black creatures? Could some sort of hybrid deck, like the G/B/u one suggested above, be viable? Is it better to focus on a single strategy?

I'd like to take a moment to wish Ted Knutson well in his future career as editor of MagictheGathering.com. I may not have been writing for long at Star City, but I do appreciate the effort that Knutson has put into making the site what it is today. Best of luck for the future.

Until next time,
Brandon Lau