Tams' League Sealed Report

I love sealed. It's probably my favorite format, so I'm always excited to get to play it, as it has a different set of challenges than draft does. Where in draft you have a large amount of agency in how you draft your deck, it is much less so in sealed. All you can do is built the best deck you can with the packs you are given and hope your pool is kind to you.

Today I was pretty lucky with my league sealed, opening some really powerful cards- the trick was choosing the best way in which to fit them together into a cohesive whole. This task was made much more difficult with my lack of fixing.

My white pool featured a Soulfire Grandmaster, which is a terrific card, but without enough instants and sorcerys, it's just a 2/2 with lifelink.

Blue brought me an Aven Surveyor, Lotus Path Djinn and double Ojutai Interceptors, but not much else. 

My green cards were faily good and included Salt Road Quartermasters, double Whisperer of the Wilds, Tread Upon and and an Assult Formation, which could be fun to build around.  

I pulled five gold cards, the first three being Harsh Sustenance, Cunning and Pristine Skywise- none of which were strong enough to pull me into their pairings. 

In the end, a strong black/red pool and double Kolghan- The Storms Fury, made the decision for me and I wound up crafting a hybrid dash deck. 

I ran six dash creatures including a Warbringer, to help cheapen my dash costs. I also had a couple of haste creatures and some smaller ground fodder that I didn't mind sacking to the Rakshasa Gravecaller, or chumping or trading up, using a combat trick. I added a Gurmag Angler, Marsh Hulk and the aforementioned Gravecaller for later game. Here's the deck as it looked for the tournament.

Kolghan did a ton of work, mostly dashing in for five and pumping up my other creatures. He's quite the value card for five mana. 

I threw in a Mind Rot in as a 23rd card and in retrospect I think I would have preferred another creature, no matter how subpar

I didn't have a ton of removal, pulling a Flatten and Wild Slash as my only straight up removal and that had it's limitations. That said, Butcher's Glee out performed as usual, acting as removal and life gain. I also discovered that Ancestral Vengeance plus Wild Slash can handily take care of a 3/3.

When it came down to the rounds, I won the first two by getting in fast and keeping up the pressure. 

Round three I lost due to my old friend variance. The first game I mulliganed to five and couldn't catch back up and the second game was much the same. 

Round four was a mental challenge as I found myself facing Step and his 3/0 record. My getting in super fast, combined with him not getting what he needed saw me winning in two. 

By the end of it all I finished first with a 3-1 record. 

Moving forward from here, I'm looking to trade for more removal, get a Heelcutter and trade up a few creatures. 

Tuesday is our week one matches so we'll see if the deck continues to perform. 

Thanks for reading, 

Tams.