[Editor's Note: This was originally published on the Asgard Games website in September 2012. Sharing here for archival purposes.]
Asgard Games is hosting a sealed deck Grand Prix Trial for GP San Jose on September 22. Included in the prize for the winner is a plane ticket to the Grand Prix itself! To get you ready for the tournament, I’m going to talk about how I approach sealed deck building. During Innistrad block, my sealed deck record over 80% at PTQs and Grand Prix, so I may know a thing or two.
Many things change from set to set when it comes to sealed deck building. The number of lands to play, number of colors to play, and whether to play first or draw first are all dependent on the sealed environment. In Ravnica (and most likely in the upcoming Return to Ravnica), 3 color was the low number of colors played, but in Shadowmoor you could occasionally get a mono-colored deck. Zendikar block necessitated a play first strategy, and many old-timers can tell you about playing 16 or fewer lands in Mirrodin sealed. But since the upcoming GPT is M13, we will focus on that.
Core set tempo has increased with the last few sets, but I still think the nature of sealed means you should be choosing to draw first. There are always exceptions to be mindful of, but as a general case I would say draw first. Land counts should be between 16-18 mana sources (usually 17). I also would almost always try to play two colors, and two colors only. I’ll go over the exceptions to these rules to help you better understand the reasoning behind the rules themselves, and give you the tools to identify times you shouldn’t be following the rules.
When should you play first?
· Play first if your mana curve is very low AND aggressive. A low curve defensive strategy is always better on the draw, even in draft. When considering if it’s right to play first, be mindful of mulligans. If your deck can mulligan to six and still operate on only 2 or 3 lands, it’s probably ok to play first. The way I figure this is a simple count of cards that cost 4 or more mana. If over half my cards cost 4 or more, I’m more likely to want to be on the draw, but if it’s only four 4-drops and one or two 5-drops, I’d consider playing first.
· Play first if you plan on casting Sign in Blood or Divination as your first spell. Two swamps and Sign in Blood is a really good opening hand, until you have to start discarding on turn 2. So in cases where I have multiples of these cards, I will choose to play first when I normally wouldn’t.
· Play first if your opponent wants to play first AND you think they are right. Just because they are trying to be aggressive and even if they are successful game 1 still doesn’t mean it’s right for you to play first game 2. The quality of your opponent will factor in to your decision here.
· When in doubt, choose to play first. This changes from set to set, but with M13 I think playing first if you aren’t sure is the safer play. That said, hopefully after reading this article you have less instances when you aren’t sure. The reason I say to play first is that I think you are more likely to lose a game by choosing to draw when you should have chosen play than vice versa.
When should you play 16 or 18 lands?
· Play 16 lands when you have multiples of Arbor Elf and/or Farseek in your deck. The lowest I would consider playing is 15 if I was solid base green and had 3 Arbor Elves and at least 1 Farseek. In both of these instances, play an extra land if your mana curve is high, or the rules for playing 18 lands come up.
· Play 16 lands when you are almost mono color and a lower curve. I won’t play 16 lands with more than two 5-drops, and having early drop creatures in both colors would also keep me at 17. But if you have a solid WW deck with multiple Ajani’s Sunstrikers and only splashing red for some Searing Spears, 16 lands might be the right call.
· Play 18 lands when the 23rd spell is really bad. Sometimes there just isn’t enough cards in the two colors you want, but instead of playing a third color, splashing, or playing something really bad, you can just play the 18th land. Playing 18 lands means you have to shift your mulligan decisions. You should lean more towards mulliganing 5 land 2 spell hands, and lean more towards keeping 5 spell 2 land hands.
· Play 18 lands if you have to cast a 5cc spell on turn 5. Sometimes you end up with a great deck, unfortunately the low curve was replaced with extra Turn to Slag and Essence Drains. Go ahead and play 18 lands. The last thing I want is to die with multiple 5cc removal in hand and stuck on 4 lands.
· When playing with different land counts than you are used to, keep it in mind when making decisions. Lower land counts mean you should probably cast spells sooner rather than waiting. Extra lands in the deck require a more cautious approach to trading cards and using removal.
When should you play something other than 2 colors?
· Play mono color if the gods smile on you and give you an amazing deck with enough playables in one color. You should still look at splashing a second color for extra removal or evasion creatures, if the colored mana requirements aren’t too harsh.
· Do not play 3 evenly split colors ever. Even with “perfect mana”, it’s still not perfect mana.
· Splashing is something I find many top players to have vastly different opinions about. Some will splash for removal almost every time, and look to find ways to splash bomb-type creatures. I am not one of these players. I almost never splash, and when I do, I want to have at least 2 “free” sources of the splash color. (A free source is something like Evolving Wilds or Glacial Fortress or Farseek). Splashing multiple colors is something that requires you to have free sources, or something like Gem of Becoming to get two of the splash lands. In general, I would rather play a couple of mediocre cards 21-23 and be two colors than to splash with no free sources.
· Playing 1 main color and 2 splash colors is possible, but it usually requires your main color to be green.
What all of these points of advice allude to is the balance between power and consistency in sealed deck. These are not mutually exclusive things! Your deck can be powerful and consistent, if you’re lucky. Also beware of some traps. Making your deck more consistent and less powerful might be just making your deck consistently bad! Sometimes your best bet might just be to hope to get lucky, but hopefully it doesn’t have to be. I like to play weaker colors with less depth if they have very powerful cards rather than playing the deep colors and splashing the power cards.
I hope this advice helps you in your future sealed deck tournaments. Also, don’t forget to play in the GPT at Asgard Games on September 22 and win your plane ticket to California!
Later
Ty Thomason
@ceciliajupe on twitter
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