Kyle M11 Sealed Release Event #2

I wasn't planning on writing up something for this.  The deck was fairly typical, but very good.  The last two rounds changed my mind.  Game 3 of round 3 and game 1 of round 4 very fairly entertaining.  First, here is the sealed pool:

So like I do first with every pool I open, I sort by rarity.  I see Platinum Angel that is making the cut reguardless of what I play; Hording Dragon, which is a spicy combo with Platinum Angel; and Fauna Shaman.  The other rares are not playable in limited.

Moving on to the rest of the pool and sorting by color, the first thing I notice is the red.  It has Fireball, 2 Lightning Bolts, Chandra's Outrage and Fire Servant as standouts.  It also is very deep in the rest of the playables such as Pyromancer, Ember Hauler, Berserkers and Earth Servant.  There are 12-13 cards that I am ok playing, many of them being cards I am excited to play.  Red is definitely going to be my main color unless the rest of the pool is bonkers.  Side note here, I feel that Fire Servant is the 2nd best red Uncommon in the set, and the 3rd-4th best non-rare.  He just enables some stupid things.

Looking at the rest of the pool, I would like to play the Fauna Shaman, so green is next.  Aside from the Shaman, there are just a few cards I like.  The Yavimaya Wurm gives the deck some fat, Awakener Druid is always solid.  But aside from that, there are just mediocre bears.

White has Serra Angel, Pacifism and some other decent flyers.  The only issue here is it is pretty shallow.  I like the top 5 or so cards in the color, but the rest are just bad.  I don't get people's affinity toward Roc Egg.  I think the card is borderline unplayable.  Safe Passage is whites version of spinning the variance wheel.  Sometimes it is 3 mana fog, sometimes it is a complete blow out.  Most of the time opponents have been conditioned to play around it since M10.  I wouldn't be too upset playing white, but would hope for something better.

Black has some decent cards.  I love Howling Banshee and Liliana's Specter.  I like Mind Rot more then most (I really like 4 mana evoked mind rot...).  The Assassinate is good, and the Sign in Blood is ok, but probably hard to cast early in the deck.   Other then that they have some bears.  Nothing too exciting.  I would rather play white.

Finally there is blue.  It has Mind Contol, which is already better then the best cards of the other colors.  After that it has Cancel, Negate and Mana Leak.  Counters are good in sealed to try to deal with other peoples bombs, so I always welcome this little package.  The filler is fine here too.  Scroll Thief is blues version of the variance wheel.  If it hits them for any number of turns they are just super far behind.  He also shines in my deck with the bolts and other removal.  The double Aether Adept helps fuel him too.

I settle on red blue and adding in all the cards I am excited to play I get to 22.  The final option is Phantom Beast, Axeing them a question or Combust.  I don't think Combust is quite main-deckable enough, although looking back it might be.  All the best decks in the format have Mind Control or Serra Angel.  Those decks naturally have targets for the Combust.  I have yet to see a really powerful deck that doesn't have either white or blue in it.

For the other two "last" cards, Axeing them a question is just too cute.  Sure it is nice with Fire Servant, but I am not aggressive enough to make it very good.  Phantom Beast is ok, and I am usually ok trading any card that targets him for it.  Even unsummon is an acceptable trade, although probably the worst of the 1for1s that happens to him.

Here is a screen shot of the final decklist:

On to the rounds.
Round 1 I play against a pretty sub-par r/w deck.  I play scroll thief on t3 to his Wild Griffin.  He decides that he has to beat in and attacks for 2 and then Passifys my Thief.  I untap and Aether it back to my hand.  A few turns later it comes down again while he is struggling with mana.   Eventually Pyromancer kills half of his guys and other removal kills the rest.  Scroll Thief gets in and the game is over.

I board out the Phantom Beast for the Combust.
Game 2 I just play like Dan.  I don't counter a 5 mana 2/3 that gains him 3.  Then decide to tap out on my next turn for berserkers.  Then he plays real cards and I just get tempoed out.  Basically I just played terrible and got what I deserved.

Game 3 is similar to game 1.  He draws some terrible cards and just dies to better cards.

Round 2 My opponent has a spicy little deck that features Frost Titan, Day of Judgment and Ajani.

Game 1 I have a mana light hand.  I end up playing Scroll Thief on 3.  It gets condemned when I attack with it and my Phantom Beast gets unsummoned.  Gargoyle Sentinel beats in for several turns and I don't commit another creature to the board to play around wrath.  Once he gets two guys on the field, he plays ajani and starts to grow.  Luckly it only gets one shot in before it dies to Gargoyle.  Once it is dead, Earth Servant comes down to hold the ground from his shitters.  He is forced to wrath away the board which leaves him with 1 card to my hand of Fireball, Ember Hauler, Platinum Angel and Berserker.  He died.

I board out Phantom Beast for Combust.  I might have also boarded out Berserker for Unsummon, but don't exactly remember.

Game 2 is fun.Turn 2 I play Owl and am shown Bolt, Mind Contol and Combust.  I actually have to ship the bolt to try to draw a 5th land for the hording Dragon and Fire Servant in hand.  Lucky I do get there on turn 5 and play Dragon.  He untaps and plays Ajani and Pumps.  I steal his Assault Griffin and try to kill his ajani.  He has the condem and untaps and plays frost titan.  On my turn all I can do is play Fire Servant and hope to kill his Titan next turn.  Owl also gets to take out Ajani.  He decides to suit up his titan with a Armored Ascension and bash me for 10.  Then this happens:

He dies a few turns later to a Bolt to the dome for 6.


Round 3 is another U/W deck.


Game 1 starts out slow.  He is stuck on lands and I am flooded.  He ends up killing my Platinum Angel with a Diminish when it attacked.  I then die to Knight Exemplar and White Knight.  Guess I should have had the fear with Platinum Angel.


I board the same as Round 2.

Game 2 is pretty much the same as game 1, only I am not as flooded.  I have Berserkers that enables a Roc Egg.  The flyer then gets Combusted and then he decides to punt for a few turns.  He plays Knight Exemplar and leaves his Griffin back.  When Berserkers attacks in, he is on team no attacks/no blocks.  The next turn is the same thing.  He passes with 5 mana up.  I draw and play Hurler.  He unsummons it pre-combat, then blocks his Knight on Berserkers and tries to play Inspired Charge.  It gets Negated to enable the 3 for 1.  He dies soon after.

Game 3 is a fun one.  He is short on mana for awhile while I only have 1 blue.  We both sit there, me with Fire Servant and Owl to his Stormfront Pegasus and Wall of Frost.  Eventually I draw a 2nd blue and bounce his Wall and attack with both guys.  He decides not to trade pegasus and goes to 15.  On his turn he taps out.  (pst. it wasn't safe):

Round 4 I play against yet another U/W deck.

Game 1 might have been one of the more entertaining games I have played in a long time.  He ends up getting Whispersilk Cloak down and tries to equip a Scroll Thief.  I kill it in response.  His Juggernaut gets bounced, but when he replays it I can't stop the equip and we are racing.  I look to have the upperhand when I play Earth Servant, but it gets Mind Controled.  This opens the way for Platinum Angel.  Suddenly he is dead in two.  He scrys with Crystal Ball and bottoms both cards.  An attack puts him dead in 1.  He scrys and leaves a card on top (awk).  He draws and casts Clone on my Angel and equips it.  A quick look to my deck list and I realize I have 0 outs.  I realize that I am going to deck first.  But then I realize that i CAN'T LOSE THE GAME.  But then I re-realize I CAN'T WIN THE GAME.  Well this is awk.  We literally draw go for infinate turns.  I am taking 5 to a Juggernaut because I am already negative and dont want to take the time to block.  He stops scrying when he cycles though his deck.  We just pass back and forth with us both at dead.  Eventually this is the game state:

Notice the clocks and the decks.  We clearly can not win the game.  He realizes he is too far behind on the clock and simply scoops it up.  Ahh the difference between real life and online.  Quick question for you guys.  What actually happens in that situation in real life?  I believe that it would simply be a draw and you would go to game 2 with the winner of the die roll deciding again.  Is that right?

Game 2 and 3 were anti-climatic.  This time my board was a little wild.  I boarded in Naturalize and a forest as a way to deal with his artifacts.
Game 2 I just die to Scoll Thief.  It hits me several times when he plays Merfolk Sovereign.
Game 3 He just dies to Scoll Thief when it hits him several times due to counters and removal spells.  His attempt to get back in the game with Mind Control is foiled with an Aether Adept.

Pretty boring way to end the event, but there was plenty of entertainment in the middle.