Sealed Deck Exercise – Building Chris’s Rise of the Eldrazi Prerelease Sealed Pool

This past week, DraftMagic.com’s own Christopher Gesualdi put up an unimpressive sealed record of 2-3 at a Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release. Today the gang takes a look at his pool and does what they can with it. Did he make the right choices of what to play, or was there a secret deck of INCREDIBLE POWER lurking in his neglected sideboard?

Roberto:
Wildheart Invoker is one of the cards I’m looking for in any pool (this one has three!), and there’s plenty to back it up, cards like Boar Umbra, Daggerback Basilisk, two pump spells, and two Kozilek’s Predators. However, looking deeper this pool has an exceptional advantage: there’s an actual deck to be built.

UWr is my path here, a strategy which combines the card advantage of Sea Gate Oracle and Surrakar Spellblade with the level-up bonuses of six creatures and two Venerated Teachers.  Here’s what I would build.

Although the triple Invoker caught my eye first, what really pulled me in was the possible ridiculousness of Surrakar Spellblade.  With the aid of Distortion Strike (OMG), Drake Umbra, Escape Unscathed, and Oust, this card is a powerhouse.  Also take a look at the six level-up creatures and two Venerated Teachers to buff them up, with Champion’s Drake thrown in for some serious beats.   Last but not least the Harbeast, who fetches out the best Umbra in the set (Drake) while also having two removal options to fetch as well in the form of Guard Duty and Narcolepsy.  Four cards in the deck draw additional cards, so I’m comfortable only playing 16 land here.

This is a control deck and should go second whenever possible, giving it a chance to see how the board develops and cherry-pick the best possible removal to use  for each circumstance.  Six evasive creatures plus tricks to push through damage means this deck will take to the board and slowly get further and further ahead.

It may seem interesting to some that I’m not playing any Eldrazi in this build. The reason is that this deck always wants to have an action ready, strategically playing its removal while not waiting for an Artisan. Deprive also ends up in the sideboard, because it isn’t always a solid answer to some of the Eldrazi triggers, and in a deck bogged down in leveling-up guys and casting removal, this deck doesn’t want to clog up UU starting turn five.  Fleeting Distraction is quite good (remember Niveous Wisps?) but needs more creatures to shine.  The assortment of 2-3 drop dorks in Blue and White just aren’t worth pushing through.

This deck’s biggest worry is Green’s aggressive creature curve (Beastbreaker, Boar Umbra, Aura Gnarlid) but they have very few answers for our air-force and our 2U creatures are great on defense, not to mention the Wall of Omens. Overall, a very solid pool and a very synergistic deck.

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Marlon:
First thing I notice about this pool is that all the rares are terrible, not a bomb in the bunch. So in lieu of the traditional “bombs and removal” sealed deck, we’re going to have to put together a more synergistic pile. Fortunately, we have the means to do so.

In my small amount of time playing with this set (1 sealed and 2 drafts) I’ve found so far that the best common creature is Venerated Teacher, and we just happen to have two of them. This guy allows for some amazing starts, and is often worth 6-8 mana when he comes into play, in addition to being a 2/2 dork. The rest of our blue is good enough to support this strategy, with many playables including the best uncommon aura, Drake Umbra. Scanning the rest of our colors green seems rather strong, with trips of the game-swinging Wildheart Invoker. However white has the level-up creatures we’re looking for, including two Knight of Cliffhaven and a Glorious Anthem on legs in Kabira Vindicator. White also provides a decent removal suite, with Puncturing Light, Oust, Smite, and Guard Duty.

Our creature base include 5 above average level-up dudes, and of course the two Venerated Teachers to bring them to their full potential as quickly as possible. Wall of Omens, Sea Gate Oracle, and the Hartebeest provide ground defense as well as card advantage, and the Invoker and the Champion Drake add evasion and both function as possible finishers. I’m not a huge fan of Eldrazi, but we’re lacking any significant beef, and the Artisan’s ability is excellent, particularly since we’re fairly low on beaters, so he makes the cut as our game ender.

For spells we have five pieces of removal, although some are not hard removal, several card advantage spells, and an excellent aura in the evasion-granting Drake Umbra. Our spells should be able to buy us the time we need to take advantage of our levelers and win the game through the air.

This deck wants 18 land to make sure to have enough mana to reliably level up in the absence of a Teacher, as well as to be able to cast the Artisan late in the game. We have enough card drawing spells so that we should reliably hit all our land drops and still have action late in the game. Emerge Unscathed is the 22nd card, over Deprive. I think it’s a little easier to cast in order to defend your creatures as they level-up.

This deck looks very solid and should reliably post a minimum 3-1 record in a 4 round sealed.

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Brett:
Same as Berto, I initially saw the three Wildheart Invokers and assumed that I had to play green.  I checked out the other colors and ruled out red and black right away (maybe a red splash…).  I then explored white/blue with its five good levelers, two Venerated Teachers, and Time of Heroes.  I bet that deck is really good, but the three Invokers still seem better to me.  I had visions of topdecking a vanilla Gray Ogre (Teacher with no levelers in play) on turn 8 and felt ill.  So, I went with the “six ways to make your guys retarded” strategy.

Basically, there are the three Invokers, Boar Umbra, Drake Umbra, and Hedron Matrix to accomplish the goal of making your guys gigantic.  This build also features a Totem-Guide Hartebeest to tutor for either Umbra or Narcolepsy.  I have included Wall of Omens and Reinforced Bulwark for early defense and Narcolepsy, Smite and Daggerclaw Basilisk for Eldrazi killin’.  Oust is obviously good, it owns levelers, Umbras, and Eldrazi accelerated into with Spawns, while Emerge Unscathed will hopefully protect the bombs we create with our 6 Bomb Creators.

There are some good cards that I left in the board.  I did not include either of the pump spells or Guard Duty or Puncturing Light.  I don’t anticipate missing the pump spells except for saving my early Knight of Cliffhavens, which might actually be a common scenario, but I really couldn’t find the room.  The Puncturing Light and Guard Duty will probably end up getting boarded in based on the opponent’s threats.

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Chris G:

Marlon & Roberto were both on target for the deck I initially built at the pre-release. The first thing I did was immediately discount the black, as it had no real playables worth chasing and was the weakest color overall. From there it was a lot harder, especially when dealing with a new format. The appeal of red’s removal really attracted me, with the Heat Ray, Flame Slash and Wrap in Flames as the stars, though this was the next color I cut.

Looking at the pool I knew I had to play White, given the solid pieces of removal, along with the two Knights of Cliffhaven and the Glorious Anthem on legs found in Kabira Vindicator. The real question was whether to push the level-up theme to the max with the two Skywatchers and Teachers offered by blue, or to fall back on the more reliable but less explosive strategy of dropping constant green beats followed by acceleration into Eldrazi.

My choice then, was to play the deck which seemed would be more fun.

There are some obvious problems with this build, ones I only realized after playing the format a bit. First, while the level-up suite is explosive, it’s probably not worth shoving in the Time of Heroes. With Vindicator in the deck I already have more than enough pump for my team, and the boost provided wasn’t worth forcing this card. It was also nonsense to try and play Artisan with no acceleration whatsoever. I should’ve focused on my quick and aggressive beats, and included some card draw to find me more problems, instead of sitting with a big creature in my hand I would never cast.

After losing the first two rounds I was disenchanted with my build, finding myself often outclassed by steady green beats unless I managed to luck into a rather smooth leveling curve. Going into the third round I switched my blue out for the green, adding a suite of all giant guys and the very solid “get there” equipment Hedron Matrix. I also switched out some of the wonky cards like Time of Heroes and the unimpressive Puncturing Light to try out things like Survival Cache and Prey’s Vengeance.

I actually managed two wins with this build. There’s nothing too special here, just drop guys and swing when given a chance. I was happy to try out the Eldrazi and I do confirm I was much happier playing the Artisan and the Crusher than I was playing the Hand left in my sideboard. Many times my opponents dropped the 7/7, only to find themselves facing down my much more impressive 8/8 or 10/9, and Annihilator 2 makes sure they run out of permanents much quicker than before.

This build was a lot more stable and offered a better buffer against some of the giant guys going around, though looking at the UW list my early match losses may have just been flukes. On paper, the levelers combined with a pair of teachers and some solid white tricks looks like it should’ve got there, and my under-performance may have just been to a spot of bad luck.