Sealed Away MTG Episode 5: All About Blue Control Decks

First off, here's the Magic Mirror deck as promised in the podcast.

One thing I neglected to mention about Blue control decks is redundancy, as one of the decks greatest strengths is how many copies of each "effect" there are in each draft.  The exception to this is counterspells, as only Didn't Say Please fits the bill unless you're in U/B.

Find the podcast here.

The rest of the episodes are also on this Soundcloud page if you're a new listener looking to catch up.
New podcast schedule should be every Sunday night, although things might occasionally get pushed into Monday night.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Eating Crow, Throne of Eldraine #2

After looking at cards I underrated yesterday, I wanted to change it up for today with cards I overrated.  I found a lot fewer cards that I overrated vs. underrated while looking through my views, which might be an indicator that my set review skewed too negative.  Or that I'm a card evaluating genius; yes we'll go with that.
 

The Cauldron of Eternity

There's a lot going on here, but like its Blue Mirror shaped cousin you're not getting a whole lot unless you have at least 3 creatures in your graveyard, and I have to imagine you want quite a few more than that you maximize this.  In order to be better than it's uncommon cousin, you need to get multiple creatures out of this, and that card isn't particularly exciting.  In games where you have a totally stocked graveyard this card looks nearly unbeatable, but without getting there this is slow and expensive.  There's enough power here that this earns high marks, but if there's one card I'm overrating in this review this is the one.

Rating: 4/5

I've had this in play in the absolute dream scenario, where I had limitless life, 7 creatures in my graveyard, and no pressure whatsoever from the opposing side.  And I lost.  While this is a great effect, it's only as good as the creatures you're able to buy back, and when this is reanimating 2 and 3 drop common creatures it just doesn't do enough for how long it takes.  I was stoked to bring back my Clackbridge Troll, but after that I wasn't getting a whole lot for my 3 mana and 2 life per turn.  While I'm complaining about the dream scenario not being good enough, I have a real point here; this card takes much more work than I realized and sometimes the pay-off just comes too slow.  While I think this is still a card you can take highly if you're the adventurous type, I think this is more broken sideboard card than maindeck bomb mythic.

Amended Rating: 2/5

Edgewall Innkeeper

My current pick for best uncommon in the set, Edgewall Innkeeper couldn't possibly be cheaper and gets out of control once its draw two cards or more.  One mana is so little here that you can save this until you're casting an Adventure creature on the same turn to ensure that you're getting that free card, although I doubt you'll need to play this that conservatively.  There's no removal spell in the set that answers this effectively, as they all cost more than one mana, meaning that even when your opponent kills this instantly you're still generating a small advantage.  To top off all of it's strengths, remember that Adventure is incredibly prevalent in this set, so you won't have to put in any work whatsoever to turn this into a card drawing machine, although it will reward you handsomely if you choose to build around it.

Rating: 4.5/5

While I would still consider this to be one of the best uncommons in Throne of Eldraine, it's no longer my best.  I've found Green to be more aggressive than I expected, and as such the cards this pairs with best in Green, like Curious Pair, don't really cut it for me.  I've played this as a literal 1 mana 1/1 in my most aggressive Green decks and been accepting, so I'd say my dreams of playing this on turn 1, and then just drawing an extra card every turn have not panned out.



Amended Rating: 4/5
 

Wicked Guardian

Combined with any creature that survives this ability Wicked Guardian is unbelievable, as this world's largest Elvish Visionary allegory.  As there's numerous ways to recur this or bounce it for value as well, there's a lot of mileage to get out of this one.  Whenever this doesn't draw a card it's downright awful, as it either has virtual Defender or trades with a 2/2, not interesting at all for 4 whole mana.  Triggering this without downside won't be too tough, but make sure to include a nice number of 3 toughness cheap creatures to insure your value.  Wicked awesome dude.

Rating: 3.5/5

Wicked Guardian looks similar to the above two cards, as it generates value based off a condition that's a bit harder than I expected.  In this case, however, the problem lies more with my rating system in general, rather than just a strict misevaluation, which also took place.  This loses a half point for both reasons, as although I believe I intended to give this a 3/5 as a reasonably strong value creature, I think it's also less strong than I expected.  Competition at the 4 slot is fearsome this time around, maybe to the highest degree I've ever seen, as cards like this are embarrassing when compared to cards like Covetous Urge or even Loch Dragon.  If the condition was totally trivial I think this is still worse than Bake into a Pie, and as such it definitely deserved a worse rating.

Amended Rating: 2.5/5

Glass Casket

Cheap removal that exiles is always great in Limited, although the condition on this one will restrict it from killing the things you really want.  At 2 mana you can't ask for too much, and you should still play this readily, just be aware if you have a bunch of these that you'll have a blindspot for big things.

Rating: 3.5/5

As many players do, it's easy to overrate cards that are only capable of killing cheap creatures.  Unless I'm exiling something that costs 3 this is pretty weak, and the ceiling is just never very high.  In this set in particular I think this being an Artifact is pretty nice upside, which stops me from nuking the rating entirely, but cheap creatures just aren't important enough to kill for me to want cards like this in all of my White decks.  Compared to Reave Soul and Scorching Dragonfire, this card looks even worse, as this "is an artifact" vs. Scorching Dragonfires ability to blow out a combat or take down a big creature with help, or Reave Souls ability to kill even the biggest defensively slanted creatures.  Don't pick this highly, don't get sucked into White for it either, but be reasonably happy to play 1 or 2 in your White decks, especially those that want to max out on Artifacts.

Amended Rating: 3/5

Tournament Grounds

If you're lucky enough to see a few of these drafting a three color aggressive Knight decks starts to look real, and as there's a lot of powerful but difficult to cast cards in the Mardu Wedge this land gives you a massive boost.  This doesn't help cast Instants/Sorceries at all so keep in mind that you'll have to keep your interactive spells to the color you have an adequate amount of regular sources for.

Rating 3.5/5

Tapping for Red and Black is great and all, but White is weak enough that I've never seen this used effectively as a triland.  3 color aggro decks certainly appeal to me, but you'd need 3+ of these before you'd actually have sound mana, and even then the pay-off isn't much better than playing Red and Black together.  My big miss here was that I expected the first copy to work miracles, and while that'll be true if you draw it in your deck with heinous mana, you'll need a bunch of these to actually build those decks and succeed.  I've left this in my sideboard as Red Black Knights before, as my Black was only a splash and half the cards were removal spells this couldn't help with.

Amended Rating: 1.5/5

This weeks lesson is to not get tricked with dreams of how great cards could be when you rate them, try to get your most objective view of how they'll play in real games.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter 

Eating Crow, Throne of Eldraine Edition #1

Nothing is more fun than laughing at our past selves... sometimes.  As I reviewed the entirety of Throne of Eldraine, I've got a lot of public mistakes to answer for.  Today we can all laugh at all of the cards I either misread or misunderstood entirely, and hopefully learn a lesson of card evaluation, too. Past comments will be in Italics.

Doom Foretold
 

At first, second, third, and 15th read I thought this was asymmetrical, and forced your opponents to sacrifice a permanent every turn.  This card is so heinously bad that I can't even believe it's real.  I'm sure there's a time and place for this, but I'm not going to be the one to find it.  Unlike other bad rares this isn't even a fun build around.

 

Rating: 0/5

 

While I'm not confident this is a great card, it turns out somewhere in the 5th-8th reading I actually knew what this did and then lost it by reading it more.  My assumption was that this card gave your opponent the bonus if you couldn't sacrifice a permanent, enabling a war that you'd always be a turn behind in.  As it happens, you can just sacrifice Doom Foretold, so this has a floor of 4 mana edict for non-token permanents.  This is also a powerful card when you're opponents not doing anything, as you'll instantly get the bonus of a 2/2 Siege Rhino that also draws a card and forces a discard from the opponent.

 

Amended Rating: 3/5

 

 

Lochmere Serpent

This is an incredibly powerful and resilient creature, that will almost always act a 6 mana attacking creature removal spell in addition to all of the other things it does.  The ability to come back repeatedly really gets me here, as a 7/7 will be of utmost importance to kill, but once you do it just comes back without caring.  Normally I'd appease this with a 3.5, but I think in Throne of Eldraine it deserves a higher grade.

Rating: 4/5

 

I'll be honest, I was so commited to the 3.50 joke from South Park that I was going to give this a 3.5, and then talked myself into a 4 after deeming that stupid.  While I'm not quite giving this a 5, this is one of the best 10 cards in the set.  Gaining unblockable is so stupid on a creature this big, and when you're opponent plays it you often feel as though there was nothing you could have done.

Amended Rating: 4.5

 

 

Gingerbrute

Supposedly this isn't creature type Food, but has the Artifact subtype Food?  I'm not exactly sure how this card even works although it looks an awful lot like a 1 mana 1/1 to me.  If you can use this with Food pay-offs it gets substantially better, although I'm still not inclined to pay a card for a Food token when they've been shown to only equal that much value with Bog Naughty.

 

 Rating: 1/5

I've played with this card enough to like it a lot more, as it often forces a race that you'll have a nice leg up on.  I'm only happy with this in mono Green, but as I believe that to be one of the best decks I think Gingerbrute performs much better than I thought.  Putting Rosethorn Halberd on this feels incredibly stupid, and is often good enough to win games on its own.  The more 1 drops you have, the better this card gets, as you'll have starts that force your opponent to stop attacking you, making a 1/1 unblockable a real closer.

Amended Rating: 2/5

 

 

 

 Midnight Clock (I forgot to even put the name in the review)

 

Another card I love that doesn't look like it'll win a whole lot of games, Midnight Clock is just as slow as the clock in your office during a bad day at work.  You don't have to bog down the game for this to be effective, you have to stop it completely, in which case I'd rather just include a couple Merfolk Secretkeepers to ensure my opponent decks out before me instead of spending upwards of 18 mana for a personal Timetwister.  The ramp side of this isn't the worst, but as you need Blue to cast it it doesn't look nearly as good as Spinning Wheel at uncommon.  I envision casting this, investing millions of mana in it, only for my opponent to Disenchant it at the 11th hour.

  Rating: 1.5/5

 

Just like Doom Foretold, I didn't read this correctly, although here I missed that this triggers each upkeep, and not just your own.  While there's likely to be more awkwardness with this triggering in someones upkeep rathet than when you'd want, the speed this goes off is about 40% faster than I thought, accounting for a few activations.  The difference in speed compared to what I thought makes this drastically better, as rather than dying a few turns before this cracks, it'll always strike just before it's too late.

Amended Rating: 3.5/5

 

Revenge of Ravens

Ill-Gotten Inheritance gives me some pause here, as the last time I did a set review (that I never released publicly) I gave that card a terrible rating and ended up totally wrong.  While this looks more obviously weak to me, it could have a time and a place against certain decks, especially when they're flush on 1 power creatures.  As a sideboard card I'm really into this as when it's good it's incredible, but I think this effect generically isn't worth a card and 4 mana.  Drain theme decks might actively want this, although I'm very unsure if those actually exist yet.

Rating: 1.5/5

Two factors are to blame for the grossly incorrect rating on this one.  As I did the set review in order without looking ahead, I wasn't aware of Syr Konrad, Smitten Swordmaster, or Tempting Witch as I was reviewing this card .  If I remember correctly, I added the last sentence after finishing the review, but didn't adjust the rating as I wasn't sure how much better this got.  Factor two is just how many small creatues actively get played in this set, as this makes anything 2 power or smaller look embarassing while still toning down anything bigger.  If you've got a bunch of Food, you can even gain enough life that your opponent will just get taxed too much taking you out.  While I think this card is currently pretty overrated, I'd happily maindeck it in most Black decks, and it gets incredibly stupid if you can get 2 in play at once.

Amended Rating: 3/5

Next edition I'll be talking about cards I overrated, as there's enough of those to look back at as well.
The biggest lesson for me today is to read cards, but read them slowly.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on  Twitter

 

Getting off the Ground

Current Record: 12-6 Draft 16-4 Sealed

While I'm likely not going to post my Sealed records repeatedly as I've got nothing left to practice it for, I'll try to keep a running tally of my Draft record so you guys can see how I'm doing.  If it's staying very positive, great, my process is probably working.  If it's not, there are some obvious things I've got to fix.  As a quick breakdown, I have 2 3-0s, 3 2-1s, and an 0-2 in Draft, while I've managed a 5-0, 2 4-1s, and a 3-2 in Sealed.  All of these records are from MTGO, I'm not planning on playing much Arena for Throne.

As a habit, I've been only really saving my 3-0s for the past few years, and very rarely I'll keep a particularly interesting deck or one that did much worse than expected.  I'm looking to change that process going forward, as I think it's a lot better when trying to learn to see a variety of decks, rather than just successful ones.  Another commitment I'm trying to make is to save my Draft Logs for outside scrutiny, although remembering to enable it every time I open MTGO has been a struggle.

Mono Color Madness

The biggest miss from my set review until now has been on the whole mono color theme.  While I initially dismissed all but the best mono color cards, there's a bunch of factors I glossed over that tell a different story.

• Much better mana.  Mono color decks are vastly more consistent than their 2 color counterparts.  The difference between not having to worry about drawing a second color ever vs. always needing access to both is massive, and it improves everything to how consistently you can cast spells on curve to how often you can keep various hands.
• Cards with deceptive power.  While I initally panned Ardenvale Paladin, that card has impressed whenever it's a consistent 3/6.  Adventure cards have also really fallen under this umbrella; although they also are benefactors of better mana, having cards that have 2WWW, 1RR, or UU versions when you're trying to cast both halves at once means mono color decks will power them up a notch. 

• Self-contained strategies.  Each color has a cohesive gameplan available just in its own color, and in some cases has a few.  While the R/B Knights might be a supported archetype, Black and Red mono color Knights are both playable on their own.  While we're not at the level of non-Blue colors having counterspells, or non-Black colors killing anything, each color has access to a good curve of creatures and a few options each for removal spells.  While White is still my pick for worst color, even mono White is a reasonable deck to play and can lead to winning Drafts.

The following was from a mono Black deck, where I managed to assemble some pretty sweet combos.

While I can't imagine you'll always get your on color Noble rare, building a deck with Cauldron Familiar, Sorcerer's Broom, and Witch's Oven can lead to a massive broom overstock. I'd happily try to attempt a deck like this again, even though it wants to combine specific uncommons together.  For anyone wondering, I go on to lose this match despite going off in the first game.

Mono Color Quick Tips

• Speculate on Hybrid cards.  Many of the Hybrid cards are the biggest pay-offs to be mono color, so if you have a few Green cards and see Rampart Smasher, consider taking it.  I'm a lot less stoked on Loch Dragon and Elite Headhunter than the other eight, but will still happily play them.  What to take over what gets fuzzy fast, as I've picked Rampart Smasher over Scorching Dragonfire and been happy, but I'm not sure if I'd pick Deathless Knight over Bake into a Pie early on.
• Pick cards with your mana base in mind.  While many of your mono color decks will splash for a powerful card or something that fills, a hole, like an extra removal spell, many of them will want to be as devoted to their base color as possible.  The more cards like Ayara and Torbran you have, the bigger your incentive is to stay as focused on that color as possible.  In my R/b deck at the top of the article, I splash for some removal spells and a few Knight cards, but I've also got a Tournament Grounds and a lack of huge Red commitments early.
• Make sure your color of choice is sufficiently open.  As long as you can pick up 7-9 playables in pack 1 you're often in good shape to pivot back into the two-color world, but you always want to have a good exit strategy in case your color dries up.  There will almost never be enough of a specific color for multiple players to draft it exclusively, meaning that even if someones fighting you at the other side of a draft table, you'll feel it.

Addressing Recent Inactivity

I didn't plan on taking last week off, but I found myself busy enough with work and GP Montreal prep that I had a tough time writing anything here.  In the future I'll try to have a few articles prepped for such an occasion, but I do apologize if you came here last week just to repeatedly see a lack of updates.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Link here for the latest podcast, finally back in action on Soundcloud.

Sealed Away MTG Podcast Episode 4: GP Montreal

I know it's been forever but I've finally released a new podcast episode.  I've married myself to Soundcloud, so that's where it'll live for now on. 

Link here.

As always I appreciate any feedback, so hit me up on Twitter or my email, sealedawaymtg@gmail.com if you've got any.

Until next time,
Kevin

Throne of Eldraine Weekend Round-Up

Twitter conjecture had me believing this to be a fast format.  This is an incredibly common early sentiment, as it's just easier to figure out proactive/aggressive strategies than slower ones, and they also prey on stumbling players much more effectively.  It's not.  The above deck easily went 3-0 6-0, and I wouldn't describe any of my draws as of high quality, although I did draw Lochmere Serpent more than average.  Value is important here, but you still need to do something on each turn of the game, just like in every Limited format of the past 5+ years that I've been playing.

Despite my pristine record this deck has some notable flaws and I made multiple clear mistakes during drafting.  I did some classic waffling between White and Black as second colors, and didn't commit hard enough once I had 2nd Covetous Urge and Lochmere Serpent.  There was some early speculation on U/W with Shinechaser and Dance of the Manse (with ants in my pants, no less), which I'm not unhappy about, but once I open Lochmere Serpent in pack 2 I should have committed.  Lochtwain Gargoyle, Jousting Dummy, and Mystical Dispute shouldn't have made the main deck, the first two if I draft correctly and don't miss playables with needless waffling, and the 3rd if I use my noggin and run 18 lands, as this deck is incredibly interested in playing a land every turn.

Covetous Urge was substantially better than I expected it to be, and makes me feel a lot more confident that the format is relatively slow (a 4/10 on the scale I'd say, with 10 as fastest).  Every game I was able to cast it on curve as I wasn't getting pressured enough by early creatures, and once I took a spell from my opponent and cast it myself it felt like I was miles ahead.  As when it misses it still can grab anything out of the graveyard, the only real downside is when you're getting beaten on hard enough that you can't afford to spend that much mana not affecting the board.  That seems relatively rare, and the card is incredible as a result.

Midnight Clock

In my set review I panned this card heavily, and this is easily the card I was most wrong about already.  As this triggers during each upkeep, as long as you're paying attention this is 40%ish faster to trigger than it would be otherwise.  Getting this a pile of turns sooner is incredible, as the effect is so gamebreaking that it usually wins you the game right then and there.  It's much better than I thought even in the late game as well, as triggering in both upkeeps means that it often won't be too slow if you draw it late, as long as you're not dead in the water.  While I don't think this card is incredible in Draft, in Sealed I think this is one of the best Blue rares.  It's still good in Draft, don't get me wrong, but it's closer to a 3.0 vs. a 4.0 in Sealed.

Random Prerelease Musings

• Deck building in this format is incredibly hard.  I've been mono color multiple times in Sealed, which I wouldn't have expected, but I also played against the classic "Bad Mana but Powerful" Sealed decks and they looked quite playable as well.  18 Lands should be a hard default, as hitting land drops is so important, and games generally revolve around the expensive cards.
• Probably choose to play?  The format is slow but proactive, I believe having the extra turn does wonders for most decks.  Only about 1-2% worth of wonders, but it's hard to turn down win percentage that you receive by answering a yes or no question correctly.  The jury is still out on this one, and I wouldn't be shocked if play/draw was 50/50 and it was irrelevant what you choose generically.
• Absolutely maindeck the first Disenchant effect, but not the 2nd.  I was incredibly happy having the ability to kill problem Artifacts/Enchantments during game 1's, but not so much so that I would have liked a 2nd if I had one.
• Black is king, White is really bad, all of the other colors feel good but seem to exist on a similar level.  I'd had Green 2nd early on but a lot of the strengths I thought it had haven't seemed to matter much, such as using Rosethorn Acolytes to do lots of splashing.  Splashing is rough without Spinning Wheel/the rare Evolving Wilds, so I'd try to avoid it unless I have Garruk specifically.
• The Royals Scions, speaking of Planeswalkers, was incredible for me.  I opened it a bunch like an incredibly skilled magician, and it was both easy to protect due to the massive loyalty and gave me multiple effective attack angles at the same time .  While there's definitely some deckbuilding constraints involved, The Royal Scions should actively pull you toward splashing it or playing U/R.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter

Prerelease Time! Fatigue and (Me)

This really isn't the article I planned on writing tonight, so try to bear with me.  Today's topic is fatigue in Magic, especially when it comes to testing.  It's easy to grind for constant hours playing as much Magic as possible, but all of the work drains your energy, and as time goes on the ability to learn, enjoy yourself, and play good Magic diminishes sharply.  If I had to poke the biggest hole in my Magic game, it'd be with how large of a percentage I'm playing Magic under the effects of fatigue.  Tonight as I struggled through a deck build and then two additional rounds of Sealed, it dawned on me that I have to accept when I'm too tired to play Magic.

U/r Control

At my prerelease I registered an U/r control deck based around Irencrag Pyromancer and The Royal Scions.  While I was relatively happy with my overall build, I largely chose the deck I did because playing with my cool Planeswalker at the prerelease is fun, and not because I explored every option and choose this as the optimal one.

Embracing fun in Magic is very important to me as it helps me continuously explore new avenues as well as keeping burn out at bay.  There's a pile of reasons why I play Magic, but as a game I've had fun playing for years, enjoyment is king.  So despite my less than competitive reasoning leading to my inevitable deck choice, I still tried to maximize my win percentage from there, as that's also important to me.  Winning is still great, even if it's not everything.

As I had a lot of incentive to play a deck heavy one one color, I ended up playing 12 Islands 6 Mountains.  I had nearly twice as many Blue cards as Red cards, with numerous 1UU and 3UU cards in my deck.  My assumption was that Blue was critical to my deck's performance in addition to making cards like Witching Well, Didn't Say Please, and Charmed Sleep the best I could, and that in a pinch most of my Blue spells could help me find Red mana.  While I certainly could have hedged a bit and ran 11/7 in favor of Blue instead, at the time that wasn't a consideration.  Mana bases in this format are much more variable and complicated than usual, and I expect that to be a major way to gain an edge in this Sealed/Draft environment.

Running out of Gas

Two hours in I was exhausted, as a combination of sickness, lack of sleep in general, and far too much caffeine as of late really diminished my already low energy levels quickly.  Maximizing the amount of time you play close to your peak level will win far more matches and lead to much more productive testing.  As I was going into an event that was for fun/testing, I wasn't in a position to have fun or get quality testing as I just didn't have the energy.  Importantly I could have avoided this predicament in a variety of ways, but I could have also decided a good night's rest was more important than one of five prereleases I could play in at my local store.  Some more consistent hydration and some extra healthy food could have gotten me past my cold a bit faster, too. While it's best to not get into a situation where you'll be incredibly tired while testing, at some point it's better to just skip it and rest instead.

Bad Lessons Learned

Say you've made what you think is an incredibly good Sealed deck, but you're in no real condition to play good Magic.  Although you could perform above expectation and perform well with the deck, odds are that you'll not do your deck justice, and you'll lose lots as a result.  Losing repeatedly with decks you think are good is going to undermine your confidence levels, and lead you toward false assumptions about what actually constitutes a great deck in a given format.  While the reverse is also often true, as feeling overconfident after a string of wins with a deck can lead to it's own problems, at the very least that is often enjoyable, where the opposite end never is.

More importantly and much more quantifiable is your ability to retain and learn information while well rested and ready vs. tired.  It took me a grand total of 1 minute to find this supporting article from harvard.edu, here, which links lack of sleep to trouble learning.  Lack of rest will stop you from recalling that great sideboard pivot you came up with, or a trick you picked up to identify when your opponent has a specific card. 

Rest

Going forward I aim to manage my fatigue better, including skipping out on things I want to do when I'm just too tired. As I know a lot of chronically sleep deprived Magic players, I hope this sentiment will have some use for others.  Many of, maybe even the vast majority of us, already know everything written on this page, but it's incredibly important to take seriously if you're serious about improving in Magic. 

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter