The combination of crappy removal/combat tricks, insufficient aggro drops, prowess cards being generally terrible, and the ability of even the the slowest deck to play its 6 drops as grey ogres to stall aggro means that this is a slow format. You'll play a bunch of big morph guys and your opponent will play a bunch of big morph guys and you'll stare at each other. This means evasion is really good. It also means the format is going to be terrible and unfun. I'm probably going to sit this season out too. Have fun.

...You haven't even played the format. Are you sure it's going to be that bad?

I don't know about terrible and unfun. But I agree it's going to be glacial. I mean, I could be way off here but it looks like the optimal draft strategy is:
"BFM"
Bombs
Fixing
Morph

And just go 4-5 color. Even if you do end up with a single wedge, denying your neighbors fixing and bombs isn't going to hurt. And you can just play grey ogres as your last couple cards even if you can't flip them.

I actually think the morphs make it very skill intensive.

Agreed. It does look skill intensive. Which is good as it helps develop better skills in newer players. Kahns seems like it will require some hard decision making and smart resource management. Especially since most Morph trades that have you coming out ahead will cost you 5 mana. That is a considerable amount. Players will have to learn utilize their mana carefully. Overextending too many cards won't allow you the resources to morph your best cards and vice versa. I like it. I think Kahns will be fine personally.

And what about Delve? Just how much discount can your graveyard give you? A single spell, outside of a coherent Sultai deck?

I think that's about right. Maybe 2 spells. And I think dedicated Sultai deck means one of the self mill permanents because the sorceries aren't going to cut it.

Delve is a terrible faction mechanic because it has dissynergy with itself. Fortunately the format seems slow enough that you might be able to hardcast some of the delve spells, and it's ok to play a few delve spells in a deck.

Ferocious is also a bad mechanic, but it's better than usual in this format because it's stupidly slow and there are a million common fatties.

Prowess is bad because it also has dissynergy with itself. Creatures with prowess don't turn on other creatures with prowess. It also wasn't pushed enough. There needed to be a common prowess bear. Did I mention that it's an aggro mechanic in a format that lacks good removal and combat tricks in aggro colors? Well I did now.

Raid would be a strong mechanic if we were playing gatecrash. We are not, however, playing gatecrash. We are playing a format where even the slowest deck can almost always play a guy on turn 3, there are fatties in every color, and there's no real way to kill them. We're also playing a 3 color format, so aggro might not be the best idea. The extent of meta inbreeding required for aggro to be good is somewhere between "deliverance" and "European Royalty".

Outlast is ridiculously overpowered, especially in a format as slow as this one. While mana sinks might be redundant with so many common fatties, the commons with outlast are pushed enough that they're worth playing even if you never put a counter on them, and when you do, they quickly become bigger than even the stupidly big morphs of the set.

In conclusion Abzan OP.

So, I took a look at the commons in KTK. And I asked myself, what is a typical curve in this set going to look like?

First off, you want to drop a land on the first four turns at least. One of your two first lands should be the common dual. A one or two-drop creature, a morph or another three-drop, and a fixing stone should complete your first four turns. This gets you to five mana, representing one of the powerful common clan morph costs on turn five. Then, you can spare some time for tricks, raiding, removal, outlast, and so on.

Is there an aggro deck that can take advantage of such slow starts? Well, black can attack with a 2/4 common combo on turn two, there is a red haste bear, but that's about it. No good cheap combat tricks either, except for Feat of Resistance. On the other hand, every clan can deploy a defensive one or two drop. And late-game cards just laugh at early drops - unless they have some +1/+1 counters and a horde of granted abilities.

The best early creature? Disowned Ancestor. This can grow, can trigger raid without fear of dying, can block and kill pikers on turn two. All with a single color of mana. In fact, one of the few good things about early plays in KTK is that they all require a single colored mana. Again, making awkward starts less probable, thus further neutering aggro.

I like slower formats, and I like playing blue, so I might like KTK. But then, it looks like in the middle game, things can go wrong very fast for unprepared decks. So missing land drops will be lethal.

I have mixed feelings about the format. It seems closest to GTC but about 2 turns slower since there's no Boros to worry about. This might be a format where you rely more on 18-20 creatures maindecked, maybe even more, than removal.

I picked Temur for this reason. Abzan seems like a better sealed option tho.

I think there are two possibilities for fast decks: B/W Warriors and U/R Prowess. Beyond that, you're right its Grey Ogres and fatties.

B/W Warriors takes advantage of Outlast and TONS of Anthems. There are so many commons which support this deck it's ridiculous, and they all curve nicely. G or R as a splash is very doable as well.

I thought Prowess was the worst until I looked at some of the cards, specifically: Act of Treason, Dragon Grip, Hordeling Outburst, and Trumpet Blast. I think there is a pretty good chance of drafting a fast Prowess deck that uses the significant amount of late game removal to push it's final damage through. I'm looking at Monastery Swiftspear, Jeskai Windscout, and Jeskai Elder for my main attacking force. White might actually be a better support color, but I think white will be highly drafted and you'd be fighting for the enablers you want. Either way, I count 6 removal spells in solid red alone, plus Treason, with 5 solid blue tempo plays, a bunch of counters, and one "Removal". I really think you could focus on getting the cheap threats and use the expensive removal to stay a step ahead while pumping your guys. W and G both provide great support.

There is just so much support that forcing a Prowess build looks really powerful.

I am going to pick Mardu for my sealed prerelease because of the quality of the bombs, the overlap with a lot of Abzan's stuff, and the warrior tribal subtheme. I especially like Zurgo and the 5/4 demon for four whose names escapes me right now.

I switched from Sultai to Temur. Sultai just seems terrible in sealed unless you get the nut pool (i.e, multiple enablers). My son is going Mardu and we don't like to pick the same packs for PR. Abzan is probably #1 or #2 but I feel personally I am going to go to time a lot with an extra slow deck.

Temur seems straightforward which is going to be good in a morph format for me.

I actually think Temur will be big in sealed, at least competitive with Abzan. Abzan rules draft though.

Sultai has the benefit of getting most Abzan cards while also playing tempo cards that screw Outlast.

I like Temur though. I might switch it up in my second pre-release, but that's what I'm playing first.

Tempo is only worthwhile if you can use the time you bought to kill them, and I don't think Sultai can.

Why does everyone like Temur so much? It shuts you out of the removal that black and white give you, which I think is a pretty huge drawback.

I'm actually switching from Jeskai to Temur myself. I believe it has to do with some of the Counterspells Temur exclusively gets (Charm and Trap essence). Also They do have some rather impressive looking Creatures (Savage Knuckleblade and Surrak Dragonclaw come to mind). Which normally could be dealt with better. but as it's been pointed out several times this set looks glacial due to slow speed cards, Morphs, and fatties running around. Not to mention the trend magic seems to be pushing removal in lately.

For me, Panacea made most of the points, but I also think Temur interacts with all the other clans' abilities the best
Outlast grows early creature which trigger Ferocious.
U/R/G all have solid spells to trigger prowess.
A lot of the Sultai cards either give you benefit from your big Temur guys dying or help get big guys onto the board fast.
Finally, since Temur's main goal is attacking with fatties...it triggers Raid fairly easily.

Not to mention it has additional mana support over the others. I think a Temur base just provides you the best advantage when looking at your sealed pool.

I'm not saying the other guilds abilities don't support one another, I just don't think they support each other as well as they support Temur.

So I haven't looked too deeply into the format, but I feeeeeel liiiiike there's a lot of bears, and bear-esque creatures.

think both Abzan and Mardu are better than Temur, but I didn't pick them because reasons. Jeskai and Sultai do get more removal but I think that in SEALED it's going to be hard to get a critical mass of both fixing and enablers (prowess and delve).

Also, in the first post you said that the removal in the set was crappy, so getting shut out of it doesn't seem that bad. There are 2 fight spells and some burn. Bouncing guys doesn't seem awful either.

I do like the common sultai morph though.

Has any info leaked yet about the contents of the seeded booster? Is it entirely in-clan, or it it just like the Theros seeded pack where really only the rare and two uncommons are definitely-on-color and everything else is pretty much scattershot?


I wonder if the seeded booster support is so minimal that there's a good chance that your best deck to build may well be a different clan than the one matching your seeded booster. I know my regret after RtR prerelease day was my stubborn insistence to stick with the Rakdos I signed up with, when I really should have jumped to Golgari.