CardShark

On this episode of The Mana Pool, we decided to practice what we preach. Last time, we gave you the basics on Sealed. For this episode, we wanted to show you those basics in action. To do this, we've done two things. First, I opened a Sealed pool of cards (a Shadowmoor Tournament Pack and two Eventide Booster Packs) and copied down the contents. I then sent the list to Dirk, Mike, Brian, and myself. Each of us had the following assignment: Build a Sealed Deck out of this pool, write it down, and be prepared to discuss. Amazingly, all four of us did this assignment, and we discussed our four very different decks. Just as a quick preview, there was a black/green deck, a green/white deck, a green/red deck, and a black/white deck. So not only have we talked about building a Sealed deck, but we have shown that there is no absolutely “right” way to build one out of a given pool. You can find the entire Sealed pool and our decklists here:
http://themanapool.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=366568

And you'd think that would have been a good episode, right? Wrong! That wasn't enough for you, our dear listeners. We had to take it a step further. Not only did we build 4 different decks before we recorded, but we also decided to build another one from an entirely different Sealed pool live on the air! I opened up the cards at the beginning of the episode, and during the discussions of the individual decks, I was sorting and typing up this new list. It went out to the dorks, and we went through the entire process of building a deck out of it. There's much discussion, disagreement, explanation, reasoning, despair, and ultimately, harmony. You can find the entire pool and the final decklist in the same post as before, but here's the link again:
http://themanapool.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=366568

Hopefully you found this educational, or enlightening, or at least entertaining. Let us know what you thought, whether you do it on the forums, in the Facebook group, or just in an email, so we'll know if we should do something like this in the future.


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So what's everyone think? This was by far the most expensive, most involved and, admittedly, most difficult episode we've ever done. Think it was worth it? Let us know either way. If you liked it then we know the effort was worth putting forth. If you didn't like it, we'll know not to waste all the time and money and effort in the future. Either way we win!

I'm getting ready to listen to the episode now, but I'm already looking forward to it. Sounds like a great idea. I always like whenever Wizards puts up draft pods from pro tours to compare what i would choose with what different pros would.

Heh, I looked over the pool you each built personal decks out of before I played the podcast, so here's what I made:

Merrow Bonegnawer 1/1 Tap remove grave card, black untaps B
Elvish Hexhunter 1/1 Sac to kill an enchantment (W/G)
Chainbreaker 3/3 3 tap remove -1/-1 counter 2
Nightsky Mimic 2/1 Becomes 4/4 flyer 1(W/B)
Safehold Elite 2/2 Persist 1(W/G)
Kithkin Zealot 1/3 Gain 1 for black, 1 for red 1W
Suture Spirit 1/1 Flying (W/B)(W/B)(W/B) regen dude 1W
Bloodied Ghost 3/3 Flying, comes with -1/-1 1(W/B)(W/B)
Duergar Hedge-Mage 2/2 Comes in, destroy enchantment 2(W/R)
Quillspike 1/1 Gets +3/+3 for each -1/-1 counter 2(G/B)
Stalker Hag 3/2 Swampwalk, Forestwalk (G/B)(G/B)(G/B)
Smoldering Butcher 4/2 Wither 3B
Ashling, the Ex 4/4 Super deathtouch witherdoom 2BB
Sootwalkers 3/3 No block by blue 2(R/B)(R/B)
Windbrisk Raptor 5/7 Flying, Lifelink all 5WW


Curve:
1: 2
2: 5
3: 4
4: 3
7: 1

Beckon Apparition Makes 1/1 black/white flyer, remove grave (W/B)
Barkshell Blessing +2/+2 with convoke (W/G)
Last Breath Remove power < 3 from game 1W
Turn to Mist Blink til end of turn 1 (W/U)
Recumbent Bliss Pacify + lifegain 2W
Unmake Super removal (W/B)(W/B)(W/B)
Aethertow You know the drill 3(W/U)
Tower Above +4/+4 trample targeted lure 6
Thoughtweft Gambit Tap all enemy/untap ally 4(W/U)(W/U)

9 Plains
7 Swamps

15 creatures + 9 noncreatures + 16 land = 40 cards

Trust me, it looked better in TextEdit. I miss my tab indentions.

As for the content, I forsook the ubercombo in favor of a load of control cards that protect me from said combo, persist, retrace, and big dummies. I always lean towards control and evasion, so I guess this was in character for me.

Currently listening to the podcast but just wanted to inform Chewie that he totally pronounced Micah's last name correctly.

Sweet! Bill and I made similar decks. His looks more like mine did before I decided to put in "The Combo". Nice job Bill!

And thank you, my dear Cait Sith, for inflating my already overlarge head. No really, you've seen my picture on Facebook. I have a seriously huge head. The camera was across the room when I took that profile pic.

I think Eventide put me in a bit of a design rut as I find myself automatically assuming white is superior in almost any pool. I think it's because it's a bomb creature-heavy format and white has a wide array of common removal, so I've made mistakes with it. It just happened to work out for me at the prerelease.

Of course, it doesn't help that Stillmoon Cavalier shot up in value like crazy, as that made my preferred white/black color palette a bit more expensive.

Well done guys I liked this episode a lot! Limited is by far my favorite format of Magic and i always love to try to make my own deck and compare. I like to see how others would make a deck from that pool b/c s this show showed, many different paths can be taken such as in ur first sealed deck. Now sometimes it is very clear which way is the best and sometimes you have options on which way you want to take ur deck.

So yeah, personally i loved this episode. You guys were also way more on topic than the last one, lol and you all brought up good points. You were also more entertaining, its kinda how you guys were toward the beginning i think. You guys just seemed to have more energy and spontanuity I loved this episode

Thanks for the kind words, man. Glad you liked it, it was a LOT of fun to do. I'm seriously considering making this a standard episode for new sets. Probably just the live build though, not both.

I agree with limited being an awesome format. I love doing draft(try to set one up every month or so with friends). A friend of mine picked up a box of Eventide and we ended up doing some Winston drafts with that. The most fun thing in limited is busting some good rares, especially when you can play multiple rares together. Last night I drafted a black-white deck with stillmoon cavalier, ashling the extinguisher, figure of destiny and fetid heath. Yeah, that one worked out pretty well. I definitely enjoy sealed too, but I usually only get to do that at prereleases and launch parties.

dam garthok, ppl must not have been rare drafting where u are! crap those are good cards hehe

It was winston draft, which is a two-person draft format. The three rares other than the land, my opponent never saw. I did rip Ashling off the top of the deck, which I was quite happy about.