Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but things have been pretty good. Last week I wracked and rolled my brain trying to decide whether to schlep down to Grand Prix New Jersey for side events—like the awesome Revised sealed event that Shawn wrote about—or stay in the city and compete in Twenty Sided Store’s Competitive Khans of Tarkir Sealed event. (Congrats to all the Hipsters and friends of Hipsters Day 2s!)
In the end, after being out of town the weekend prior and having a busy birthday week in between, I decided to rest up on Saturday, clean my house, and hit the sealed at 20SS at 5:30pm, five minutes’ walk from my house.
I really like sealed. I know that some people feel like it’s just 100% randomness, but Khans of Tarkir is a particularly skill-testing and wide-ranging format, and I’ve really enjoyed the challenges that come from trying to optimize a pool in a format where you can go in so many different directions, thanks to gold cards, plentiful fixing, and lots of splash options.
This week I was rewarded—or is it cursed?—with a really tough pool, in a good way:
White
Blue
| (11) 1 Icy Blast 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Embodiment of Spring 1 Jeskai Elder 1 Mistfire Weaver 1 Monastery Flock 1 Singing Bell Strike 1 Treasure Cruise 1 Weave Fate |
Black
| (12) 1 Murderous Cut 2 Kheru Dreadmaw 1 Rakshasa's Secret 1 Sultai Scavenger 2 Debilitating Injury 1 Disowned Ancestor 2 Shambling Attendants 1 Unyielding Krumar 1 Mardu Skullhunter |
Red
| (11) 1 Mardu Heart-Piercer 1 Arrow Storm 1 Leaping Master 1 Mardu Blazebringer 2 Mardu Warshrieker 2 Shatter 2 Summit Prowler 1 Tormenting Voice |
Green
| (11) 1 Trail of Mystery 1 Dragonscale Boon 2 Feed the Clan 2 Tusked Colossodon 1 Sagu Archer 1 Longshot Squad 1 Sultai Flayer 1 Archers' Parapet 1 Highland Game |
Gold
| (10) 1 Siege Rhino 1 Ankle Shanker 1 Armament Corps 2 Abomination of Gudul 2 Efreet Weaponmaster 1 Jeskai Charm 1 Winterflame 1 Abzan Charm |
Lands
| (9) 1 Nomad Outpost 1 Scoured Barrens 2 Rugged Highlands 1 Frontier Bivouac 1 Bloodfell Caves 1 Opulent Palace 1 Jungle Hollow 1 Swiftwater Cliffs |
Artifacts
| (6) 1 Altar of the Brood 2 Mardu Banner 1 Temur Banner 1 Cranial Archive 1 Abzan Banner |
God, what I wouldn’t give to have this pool at a Grand Prix or a PTQ. As you can see, I had some very strong cards in the form of Wingmate Roc, Siege Rhino, Murderous Cut, Armament Corps, Icy Blast, Abzan Charm, Ankle Shanker, and Mardu Heart-Piercer—and, as you can see from my lands, with the mana to cast (most of) them.
This was a really difficult build. In a base-Abzan deck, I had five free red splashes thanks to Nomad Outpost, two Rugged Highlands, one Frontier Bivouac, and Bloodfell Caves. Thus, I decided to build Abzan splashing red for Ankle Shanker and Mardu Heart-Piercer, the latter of which I maybe like even more than the former, rarity be damned. Here’s the build I settled on:
Competitive Sealed Deck
I knew right when I was done registering that I wanted to get some outside opinions on my build after the tournament was over, and I told Limited master Hugh Kramer as much. I was worried whether or not I was right to splash the Shanker and the Piercer, or if I should have just gone straight Abzan, with a cleaner manabase. But Shanker, I reckoned, is a board stall breaker, and Heart-Piercer is basically the best thing you can do on turn four.
I also hemmed and hawed quite a bit on what cards I left in the board. As you can see, I had many difficult cuts to make. Kill Shot, Smite the Monstrous, Sage-Eye Harrier, and Timely Hordemate were some of my final cuts. When Hugh looked at my deck at the end of the night, he agreed that I was correct to splash for the red cards, but that I probably should have played Archer’s Parapet and one of the two white removal spells over Highland Game and Mardu Skullhunter. Hugh may well be right, but the reason I had those guys in there was to maximize my Ankle Shanker (and, for that matter, Mardu Heart-Piercer) draws; I dunno if going down to 15 attacking creatures from 17 is what I wanted to do. Still, 15 isn’t a low number of attackers, so who knows. I do like Archer’s Parapet, which in its own way is also a board stall–breaker.
Spoiler alert: I did very well in the five-round tournament, losing only one round, my fourth, to eventual cham-peen James Bathurst’s Boros aggro build, to a particularly brutal Ashcloud Phoenix in G1 and a mana-screw in G2.
In R1 I played Gabe Reale, who I find particularly unnerving to play against. Not only is he a very good player, but he betrays no emotion when you do something that you feel he ought to be bummed about, like when I snapped off a T5 Wingmate Roc with a raid kicker and Gabe was just like, “Yep.” No disappointment at all—which, of course, made me think that I didn’t have the game quite as locked up as I thought I did. Hell of a poker face on Gabe.
At any rate, I was worried about Duneblast from Gabe, but the card (which he did in fact have, along with a Roc of his own) never showed up, and I took the round. In match two I played a player I didn’t know, and dispatched him pretty easily.
In R3 I played an epic match that went to turns against Johnny Cheng. Our first game took forever, but Johnny eventually won. I rattled off a quick victory in G2, and then in G3 I daggered a tapped-out Johnny by revealing Wingmate Roc to flip up my Watcher of the Roost before combat on T5. “Oh shit,” he said (he hadn’t yet seen Roc out of me). I promptly cast Roc w/ raid after combat and took the match on like T2 of turns.
R4, as I said, I lost to James. GGs, man. And in R5 I managed to finish strong against another new (for me) opponent, who was similarly done very well despite having two-count-’em-two Firehoof Cavalrys in his deck.
It was a fun night! And afterward me and a few of the boys and Judge Chase (thanks again for judging, man!) got some food and drinks at Lodge.
I’m curious what y’all think of my build. I thought the Dragonscale Boon might have been a bit too cute, but I really liked the synergy that it allowed me to have with my outlasters, and I kind of wanted a more proactive spell instead of Kill Shot or Smite the Monstrous, the former of which can be dead if you are aggressive, which I wanted and planned to be, and the latter of which can often just be dead, period. I did board out the Boon on regular occasion for one of those kill spells, but in general I kind of liked having the combat trick in my deck, at least for game one. Other notable board-outs and -ins included the Sultai Scavenger for the Sage-Eye Harrier, which simultaneously shored up my early and late game.
23/17 is a Hipsters of the Coast column focused on Limited play—primarily draft and sealed, but also cubing, 2HG, and anything else we can come up with. The name refers to the “Golden Ratio” of a Limited deck: 23 spells and 17 lands. Follow Hunter at @hrslaton.