How To Build an M10 Sealed Deck

Hi, readers! Today I'll be going through building a Sealed deck with M10. I randomly generated the deck with Magic Workstation (which finally sorted out it's Mythic Rare issue) and got started.

I opened 6 M10 boosters. Here's what I got:

White (16)

2 Angel's Mercy

1 Celestial Purge

1 Divine Verdict

1 Glorious Charge

2 Griffin Sentinel

1 Holy Strength

1 Lightwielder Paladin

1 Pacifism

1 Serra Angel

1 Siege Mastodon

1 Solemn Offering

1 Soul Warden

1 Stormfront Pegasus

1 Veteran Armorsmith

Blue (12)

1 Divination

1 Fabricate

1 Horned Turtle

1 Ice Cage

3 Illusionary Servant

2 Jump

3 Tome Scour

Black (16)

1 Assassinate

1 Black Knight

1 Bog Wraith

1 Deathmark

1 Disentomb

1 Doom Blade

3 Kelinore Bat

1 Looming Shade

1 Mind Rot

1 Rise from the Grave

2 Sign in Blood

1 Tendrils of Corruption

1 Unholy Strength

Red (18)

1 Act of Treason

2 Fiery Hellhound

1 Goblin Piker

2 Jackal Familiar

1 Lava Axe

1 Lightning Elemental

1 Manabarbs

1 Panic Attack

1 Seismic Strike

1 Stone Giant

2 Trumpet Blast

1 Viashino Spearhunter

3 Yawning Fissure

Green (17)

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Bramble Creeper

1 Cudgel Troll

2 Fog

2 Llanowar Elves

1 Master of the Wild Hunt

2 Mist Leopard

1 Nature's Spiral

1 Prized Unicorn

1 Protean Hydra

2 Rampant Growth

1 Regenerate

1 Stampeding Rhino

Artifacts (5)

1 Gorgon Flail

1 Mirror of Fate

2 Rod of Ruin

1 Whispersilk Cloak

Lands (0)

Without even sorting into playables, the first color to cut is Blue. It's not even splashworthy. The Servants are okay, but UU defeats a splash idea. Red is the next one to go, being slightly weaker than the other colors.

Now we sort our remaining colors into playables:

White (11)

1 Celestial Purge (SB)

1 Divine Verdict

2 Griffin Sentinel

1 Lightwielder Paladin

1 Pacifism

1 Serra Angel

1 Siege Mastodon

1 Soul Warden

1 Stormfront Pegasus

1 Veteran Armorsmith

Black (11)

1 Assassinate

1 Black Knight

1 Bog Wraith

1 Deathmark (SB)

1 Disentomb

3 Kelinore Bat

1 Rise from the Grave

2 Sign in Blood

Green (13)

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Cudgel Troll

2 Llanowar Elves

1 Master of the Wild Hunt

2 Mist Leopard

1 Prized Unicorn

1 Protean Hydra

2 Rampant Growth

1 Stampeding Rhino

Artifacts (2)

1 Gorgon Flail

1 Whispersilk Cloak

It's fairly obvious we want Green as a main color, with most of the bombs and the mana fixing. We don't really want to play the Kelinore Bats if we can avoid it (and we can with Green's creatures) so Black is out, and we don't want to splash for more than 1-2 cards that aren't worth it, so that leaves us with a G/W deck with 25 cards.

M10 is an 18-land format, so we have to cut 3 cards.

After cutting a Birds of Paradise, and 2 Mist Leopard (unfortunately, but we have too many good cards) we have the following decklist:

Salivanth's M10 Sealed:

Lands (18)

9 Forest

9 Plains

Creatures (16)

1 Cudgel Troll

2 Griffin Sentinel

1 Lightwielder Paladin

2 Llanowar Elves

1 Master of the Wild Hunt

1 Prized Unicorn

1 Protean Hydra

1 Serra Angel

1 Siege Mastodon

1 Soul Warden

1 Stampeding Rhino

1 Stormfront Pegasus

1 Veteran Armorsmith

Spells (6)

1 Divine Verdict

1 Gorgon Flail

1 Pacifism

2 Rampant Growth

1 Whispersilk Cloak

And there we have it. One sealed deck, ready to play. The basic steps to take are: eliminate two colors, then strip down to playables before eliminating a third color as a main. If it can be a splash, determine the splash, then cut down the other two colors so you have an appropriately sized deck of 22 non-land playables. Then play!

Until next time, may you branch out and experiment with other styles.

Catching Up On Magic - Part 5

Drafting Alara Block

In the spirit of this series, I will assume that you already know basic Limited theory, and move straight to the specifics of this block. In Alara Block, there are too many good multi-colored cards, including the 100% multi-color Alara Reborn, to go two colors. In Alara Block, you want to pick a shard.

There are two schools of thought on the first few picks: one says you should pick a shard by picking a three-color bomb, and stick with it, the other thinks you should avoid committing to a shard for awhile. In my opinion, feel free to take a three-color bomb first pick, but no card is worth a draft, so if you can't get the cards you need, go ahead and switch shards.

My personal preference is to draft Esper, since most people don't draft Esper. The best shards objectively are Jund and Naya, but a lot of people will try to draft them. Choose what you will.

Manafixing should be picked fairly highly, especially tri-lands. If you can get good manafixing in packs 1 and 2, you can splash a fourth color in Alara Reborn if you have to.

In Shards or Shards / Conflux, two colors was fine, but now multicolor is king. You MUST draft a shard. End of story.

Drafting Magic 2010

Magic 2010, as a core set, is fairly classic draft: W/U fliers, U/B control, B/R removal, R/G aggro, G/W midrange are the main archetypes. Instead of telling you how to draft this format, I'll tell you the subtleties of it:

Magic 2010 is a slow format. Evasion is king, since it's very easy for the ground to get gummed up in a sea of 1/4's and 3/5's.

What do all these four cards have in common? They all end creature stalls, and they're all potential first picks.

If you can break a creature stall and they can't, you have the advantage. Make sure you don't get caught on the wrong end of that equation.

M10 is also a bomb driven format, with Sleep, Overrun, Fireball, Howl of the Night Pack and Mind Control all at uncommon, and plenty more at rare. Playing your bombs and stopping your opponent playing his are generally excellent strategies for any M10 draft.

The most important thing to remember in Draft is to keep your mind open as you play so you can learn. A couple of M10 and Alara drafts will teach you more than I can possibly teach you: much of drafting theory is learnt while drafting, hence the short article. I could go in depth into pick orders and that kind of stuff: but that's not what this series is about.

To be continued...