Black
1 x Dead Drop
1 x Gurmag Swiftwing
1 x Kheru Bloodsucker
1 x Kheru Dreadmaw
1 x Mardu Skullhunter
1 x Raiders' Spoils
2 x Rakshasa's Secret
1 x Rotting Mastodon
1 x Sidisi's Pet
1 x Sultai Scavenger
2 x Throttle

Blue
1 x Blinding Spray
1 x Dig Through Time
2 x Disdainful Stroke
1 x Dragon's Eye Savants
3 x Glacial Stalker
1 x Icy Blast
1 x Monastery Flock
1 x Singing Bell Strike
1 x Treasure Cruise

Green
2 x Alpine Grizzly
1 x Awaken the Bear
1 x Heir of the Wilds
1 x Roar of Challenge
1 x Savage Punch
1 x Smoke Teller

Red
1 x Ainok Tracker
1 x Arrow Storm
2 x Barrage of Boulders
1 x Bring Low
1 x Goblinslide
2 x Leaping Master
1 x Mardu Warshrieker
1 x Monastery Swiftspear
1 x Summit Prowler
1 x Swift Kick
1 x Tormenting Voice
1 x Trumpet Blast
1 x Valley Dasher

White
1 x Feat of Resistance
1 x Ainok Bond-Kin
1 x Erase
1 x Jeskai Student
1 x Kill Shot
1 x Mardu Hateblade
1 x Mardu Hordechief
1 x Seeker of the Way
1 x Siegecraft
1 x Suspension Field
1 x Take Up Arms
1 x Venerable Lammasu
1 x War Behemoth
1 x Watcher of the Roost

Multi-Colored
1 x Efreet Weaponmaster
1 x Jeskai Ascendancy
1 x Temur Ascendancy
1 x Temur Charm

Colorless
1 x Altar of the Brood
1 x Bloodfell Caves
2 x Blossoming Sands
1 x Cranial Archive
1 x Dismal Backwater
1 x Jungle Hollow
1 x Lens of Clarity
1 x Mystic Monastery
1 x Rugged Highlands
2 x Sultai Banner
2 x Swiftwater Cliffs
2 x Temur Banner
2 x Thornwood Falls
1 x Windswept Heath

It's such a pain having to look these cards up. I'll look at this tomorrow and give my opinion!

I have the benefit of looking at the cards as I build the pools. MTG Salvation can do a quick text search with CTRL+F. You're not going to, for example, really consider green in this pool. So that helps too.

This is the deck I built:

1 x Jeskai Student
1 x Ainok Bond-Kin
2 x Leaping Master
1 x Seeker of the Way
1 x Watcher of the Roost
1 x Mardu Hordechief
1 x Mardu Warshrieker
1 x Efreet Weaponmaster
3 x Glacial Stalker

1 x Ainok Tracker
1 x Venerable Lammasu
1 x Feat of Resistance
1 x Kill Shot

1 x Icy Blast
1 x Trumpet Blast
1 x Treasure Cruise

1 x Suspension Field
1 x Singing Bell Strike
1 x Jeskai Ascendancy

1 x Temur Banner

1 x Windswept Heath
2 x Thornwood Falls
2 x Swiftwater Cliffs
1 x Mystic Monastery

2 x Island
6 x Plains
3 x Mountain


This was a difficult deck to build. There are 5 two-drops, which makes this an aggressive build, and two of those 2-drops (the leaping masters) are mana-sinks/wind drakes that can push damage through in the early game or the late game. The issue I have with them is that a mana sink in this format usually means you're not going to use Morph, which is the other angle of attack with this deck.

5 5-mana morph dudes seems clunky, rough, and slow. But I need the dudes! And while flipping over a 4/5 vanilla dude for 5 seems kinda lame, they are efficient beaters and beat most of the creatures in the format.

The mana base was also difficult to figure out. As I have it now, I have:

8 white sources
8 blue sources
7 red sources

This isn't optimal, but it's what I got. The smaller number of red sources means I couldn't run RR spells like Summit Prowler and Arrow Storm, which sucks, but, eh, whatcha gonna do?

There is another deck that goes with Mardu colors, but it just plays a lot of weenies and hopes to remove threats with the new lash of the whip spell, and doesn't have the bonkers card draw that jeskai ascendancy and treasure cruise provide.

This was a pretty difficult build, tbh. Thoughts?

I will try to look in detail but from looking at the fixing and pools, I think
a) jeskai
b) you are super short of dudes

I have been doing a few of these and the builds are all pretty difficult. Also if you are running a 7 drop flier, you kinda need 18 lands. I guess you have Banner... but

I agree with the 18 lands EXCEPT I have the cluestone and a bunch of card draw. I'm hoping that's enough. It probably isn't, but, eh, this was the hardest pool I've practiced with.

I might be wrong, but I think 18 lands will be the norm for KTK, not the exception.

Oh no if you're not playing 18 lands + a rock (at least in sealed) you're probably going to have a hard time casting your spells.

First a no-peeking build:

It seems like your rares want you to go the Temur way, but you only have two Alpine Grizzly, a Summit Prowler, and three Alpine Stalker to trigger the Ascendancy and to turn on ferocious, and I'm not sure the Stalkers are playable. On the other hand, the good removal in your pool is white (what else?), red and black. So let's see what Mardu has to offer.

1 x Mardu Hateblade
1 x Monastery Swiftspear
1 x Ainok Bond-Kin
1 x Seeker of the Way
1 x Jeskai Student
1 x Mardu Hordechief
2 x Leaping Master
1 x Valley Dasher
1 x Watcher of the Roost
1 x Mardu Warshrieker
1 x Sidisi's Pet
1 x Summit Prowler
1 x Ainok Tracker
1 x Sultai Scavenger

1 x Suspension Field
1 x Feat of Resistance
1 x Kill Shot
1 x Trumpet Blast
1 x Bring Low
1 x Arrow Storm
2 x Throttle

1 x Bloodfell Caves
1 x Mystic Monastery
6 x PLains
6 x Mountain
3 x Swamp


Not much, but I think this is the best that can be done from the pool. Honestly, this makes me want to play Altar of the Blood. There is practically no Mardu fixing in there. So I tried to avoid early black plays, even though some black critters are better than some of the red ones. 7/8/4 should work with the mana costs of this deck. This has a low curve, with six two-drops. And it can be blanked by a morph. I guess I could be a bit adventorous and include the red-blue fixing to play the Weaponmaster and/or the Icy Blast, but then I'd have to do away with the one-drops. Or something.

So, you went Jeskai. I like the Singing Bell Strike and Icy Blast, but not the Ascendancy or the Cruise. They are both too inconsistent.

Maybe the best way to go is a bit slower, RWub build. But this one is hard, especially with no experience of the format. Many close decisions.

As for the lands, I think my build is OK with 17 and no stones (quite underpowered, though). The only two six-mana spells have morph and delve to help out, and the five-mana removal shouldn't be spent too early anyway.

I'd like to discuss the theory of using tri-color fixing that only overlaps with your colorset on two fronts, and two-color that only overlaps on one side.

The first thing that stood out for me: you're running Windswept Heath in a deck where there are no forests, and the only thing that counts as a plains is basic Plains (which is your most plentiful land anyway). Is it really worth running Heath instead of a plains to be able to pay a life to get one spontaneous library shuffle, a one-card deck thinning, and an extra card in your grave (for your one Delve card)?

The Temur Banner - your deck has exactly two sources of Green mana. In general, are mana rocks in this format so useful as acceleration that it's worth running a banner on two of your colors, for which you have little to no means of ever activating the 'refund' ability? What about if the banner only hits on one color you're using?

Those two sources of Green mana are Thornwood Falls - another 'is it worth it' question - is it worth it to run those refuge lands to zero or near-zero support of the secondary color? Really, the vast majority of the time with this deck, Thornwood Falls is just a bad Island (enters tapped, gives you a life, and really is only likely to be used for U).

I'm still trying to figure out if three color is really the best plan if you don't luck into bombs in a playable wedge. A lot of people will want to try to run 3 colors to rep their clan, but I strongly wonder if the best play would be to condense to a more manabase-reliable 2-opposing-color build and run all the best cards in those two colors of which there will be two representative clans. Headed into this weekend signed up for Abzan, but wondering if I should lock in on strict Abzan trio, or consider going WB AbzanMardu, or GB AbzanSultai.

I'll go point-by-point.

1. Heath is worth it. I don't believe in deck thinning alone, but it is gravy, and I am running treasure cruise.
2. Banner - it's an izzet cluestone that also taps for green. In Dragon's Maze block I often didn't sac the cluestone until the late game when I needed a card, so for the purposes of this deck it's simply fixing for two of my colors and accelerating slightly.
3. & 4. Green sources - you can argue that I could conceivably drop one of those and make it a basic forest if I want to sac the banner bc I have windswept heath and I think that's fine, even preferable. You could also argue that I should make them basic islands in the event I want to curve out fluidly. My idea is that the deck has enough low-drops that playing CiPT lands don't disrupt me curving out, and the potential sacking of the banner to draw a card is more relevant. I do think fixing + card draw is very powerful, and in a format that has grindy matchups it's the difference between winning or parity sometimes. In general, the best limited cards do multiple things, and these banners do three: fix, ramp, card draw. I plan on running one or two in each of my decks, unless I manage to build a two-color deck without a splash.

I do not think playing two-color will always be ideal. I think the most powerful cards force you to reach across multiple mana symbols, and narrowing your deck to two colors might be helpful only if one of those colors happens to have a lot of good dudes (green) and the other has good removal/evasion (blue/black). The difference in 3-mana power and 4-mana power in this format is, to me, immense, and the pay off of going under someone with 2- and 3-drops generally won't be worth it when even the slowest decks will have a 2/2 coming down on T3.

This pool sucks. And shows why Jeskai is going be hard to play in sealed. At least in draft there are a few token generating sorceries which you can kind of count as creatures.

I think Ziehtoba's build is somewhat more powerful, but the mana base is awful. However, with a bad pool maybe you should gambool.

The white is really good, but I'm going for Temur. Probably a bad idea since it's somewhat creature light but... aaaaalll the removaaaaal. I'm cutting removal spells here!

LAND (18)
1 x Rugged Highlands
2 x Swiftwater Cliffs
2 x Thornwood Falls
1 x Windswept Heath
3 x Island
5 x Mountain
3 x Forest

CREATURES (12)
1 x Dragon's Eye Savants
2 x Glacial Stalker
1 x Monastery Flock
1 x Ainok Tracker
1 x Mardu Warshrieker
1 x Monastery Swiftspear
1 x Summit Prowler
1 x Valley Dasher
2 x Alpine Grizzly
1 x Heir of the Wilds

OTHER SPELLS (11)
1 x Icy Blast
1 x Singing Bell Strike
1 x Bring Low
1 x Swift Kick
1 x Awaken the Bear
1 x Roar of Challenge
1 x Savage Punch
1 x Temur Charm
1 x Altar of the Brood
2 x Temur Banner

I am thinking that 3 fight spells and a must block with 12 dudes is a terrible, terrible idea.