I've been wanting to try out the new friendly three-week leagues for a while now. And now, I'm glad I did. I enjoy the deckbuilding challenge, taking my time, building a lot of decks, experimenting.

As always, first thing was to sort by rarity. Bummer, only four columns, no Mythics. Three dual lands, Corrupted Grafstone, Brain in a Jar, Slayer's Plate. Yuck. One playable, no pointers.

For some reason, I decided on a URb tempo/madness deck first. I guess double Ravenous Bloodsucker, two RB rare duals, Daring Sleuth, Stitchwing Skaab, and some fine blue spells made me want to play it. But then the length of the white column leaped out at me. No removal, but two Thraben Inspector, two Dauntless Cathar, Nearheath Chaplain, Expose Evil. And the Plate. So next I made a UW deck. I lost the first match with the UR deck, won the next two with the WU. And then it was the time to add a booster. Sin prodder. Not Forgotten. True-Faith Censer. Second Jace's Scrutiny. Third Watcher in the Web. Fleeting Memories. All of a sudden, life was even more complicated. But in a good way. So I decided to build some more decks, and ask for advice.

First up, the UW:



Somehow, this looks unimpressive to me. But it played very well indeed in the two matches I played with it, and I enjoyed the tricks with Daring Sleuth, the staying power of the Cathars, and the Plate just won both matches when it came down with six mana on board. It had a few real upgrades for week two, Censer, the third Cathar, second Scrutiny. So probably I should play this. The dilemmas are the Ethereal Guidance, Hope Against Hope, even Ghostly Wings, which are all cards sealed decks of this kind are happy to play.

Next up, what I think are the two best colors in my pool, RW:



However, even with the free black splash, this is just a jumble of good creatures with no synergies, no real plan, no card advantage engines beyond the Prophet. I don't think I want to play this even though it seems a Sin not to play the Prodder in a sealed pool.

Maybe URb, my first choice, looks better now?



Now this looks like fun. But is it strong? The Bloodsuckers without the real madness payoffs? Fury with no tramplers? Again, a lot of strong cards. Also lots of sideboard options, some might even be maindeck cards over a few random dorks. Maybe I'm too used to the power of draft decks?

And finally, UG deck them:



Now this deck should be able to reach delirium quickly, it has the three Watchers to hold the fort, some early drops for trading. But only four clue producers, none of them repeatable. Well, Sleuth, but it has no chance of getting through with this build. Certainly a great sideboard option for a durdly matchup, but I don't think it's quite good enough to start.

So, what would you do? All opinions welcome.

I think I actually like the UW. The Red gives you Uncaged Fury and Spiteful Motives which will be pretty good against someone without removal. But your best play of T2 bloodseeker T3 Twins requires you to have a black source by T3, which seems unlikely.

True of both the WRb and URb. Both of those decks are going to have trouble with Green beaters.
The UG deck might solid, too. I mean, triple watcher is just hilarious. Maybe if you win a tough game 1, you can board into UG and guarantee 1-0-1 match (assuming you don't actually mill them out). Fleeting Memories doesn't really do anything though, you have to win with manic scribe, which does die to removal. I think you might want to play Ghostly Wings so you could put it on a flipped sleuth and generate clues that way. You can cut catalog or nagging thoughts. It's also reasonable defense.

Oh, snapper is unplayable isn't it? Just play the dumb 4/5. Stoic builder isn't terrible in that deck either.

Finally, the Rx decks need to all play Slayer's Plate.

I agree with most of what you say. Snapper is there because I never want to attack with the UG, and it blocks a lot better than the 4/5.

I went with UW for round two, went 1-2. Had a bit of bad luck in a match, got color screwed two games, in a straight two-color 9/8 deck. And lost a match to a much better deck.

Week three booster made the choices a bit easier. UW got Always Watching, which is just about the best card for the deck, and a Moorland Drifter. UG got Ulvenwald Mysteries, which is again one of the best cards for the mill archetype, a Solitary Hunter, and another Watcher. There was a real GW deck there too, but it just played a million dumb animals, and some buffs. A lot of staying power and card advantage, mainly Mysteries and the Spirit makers, but no tricks, no removal. I much prefer the play style of UW. Seems I'm not the only one, since I played two UW decks week three. Won both matches, since my deck was simply better. And the third was against UB control, which was so easy I decided to try out the UG in game two. Worked like a dream. The game ended with me at 10 cards in the library, 15 life, they at 20 life, no cards.

6-3 with what felt like a disappointment when I looked at the rares, but turned out to be a quite good pool. It would need a bit more power, a flashy rare, in the first two weeks, to do better. I had fun, played what amount to three drafts for 7 tix. I probably could sell the three duals for two tix but I prefer to get a playset of the rare lands first.

So of course I rejoined the league, and got another pool with five useless rares. Two duals, a Silverfur Partisan with exactly one other (were)wolf in the pool, a Deathcap Cultivator with a laughably week green pool. The one rare I might actually play is Asylum Visitor, since I have both black Vampire uncommons, the Axe, a Temper, and some other RB madness/vampire cards. As usual, the deck falls about five playables short, so I might splash white for Purge and Topplegeist. Which seems a weird card to play on a splash, but it doesn't really do anything without delirium, so it's fine late game.

TL;DR: it's fun for anybody who enjoys deckbuilding, it can be expensive if you get a weak pool, and it's very different from draft. A definite hit for Wizards.

So i seen the top part of the picture of the U/W or Sideboard and thought it was your maindeck.

I thought to myself. How am i going to write how awful this is without being rude. I even stopped to try and get a feel for the deck of what you were trying to build. "oh he must have the 2 Ethereal Guidance for when after he rise from the tides" i then scrolled down to see 3 Dauntless Cathar's and a Slayers Plate.

Lol that deck was really good, if the sideboard could be mistaken for a deck, even a bad one

Huh, you know I thought it couldn't BLOCK without casting a sorcery either, I guess that makes it a D-.

Hehe, it would take some work to cast a sorcery and block with the Snapper in the same turn

Part of the fun of Sealed is getting to see playables you just straight out dismiss in a draft. Sometimes the dismissal gets to be so automatic you forget what the card does.

This is my third try at a SoI seled league. The first one I wrote about above, the second one was one of the worst sealed pools I ever saw, which ended up going 4-5 (among other things, I got soundly beaten by our fellow forumite, Cauchy). And here is number three:



Or, in deck form, unsorted:


This pool is pulling me in so many directions I just don't know what to do. I also think this pool is a few cards short of greatness. Obviously, I got very lucky with the rares (a Nahiri and Burn from Within are foils), but creatures and burn seem a bit lacking. As I mentioned before, I have problems accurately judging sealed pools.

Ideas welcome.

Two Nahiris. Ye gads.

My streak of sealed pools without a planeswalker is now at 12.


When I look at that pool I don't see pulling in multiple directions at all. You have two copies of an insane red-white mythic, your longest color is red, and you've got decent support and removal in white. Your green, black, and blue aren't good enough and don't offer their best removal options (as much as it pains to not play Recruiter). And if that wasn't enough you got a white-red dual. This deck instantly screams "Red main, white support" to me.

Yikes...that is brutal. 2 x Nahiri, Sin Prodder, 2 Bloodmads, Burn from Within, and a Nahiri's Machinations! Machinations and Bloodmad Vampire is a pretty insane combo. And Nahiri herself helps make them cheaper. Yeah, I don't see any directions but R/W (although Humans vs Vamps might be a choice), although I'm not sure you can get enough early game to make Machinations worth it. Let's see:



Although I could be convinced to change out Constable (an ok Madness enabler) and Machinations for Silverstrike and Magmatic Chasm or maybe even Strength for something.

Thanks for the comment.

RW has bad creatures, no burn. The pull comes from Neglected Heirloom on one side, and from three best RU cards, Rise from the Tides and the two red critters.

I've had quite bad experiences with the Bloodmad Vampire. And I'd need to play two to make red main color. If the RW can establish itself as the aggressor, it should be very strong. But Nahiri is not an aggro card, it's a control card. Well, I guess Bloodmad can block fairly well too. Gorger has two combo pieces to go with the madness-granting, the tapper and the planeswalker, but it does (almost) nothing on its own, which also goes for the tapper, and most of my red Vamps already have madness anyway. And so on.

RU is looking really promising. Splashing white, of course.

Yeah, Nahiri is control but I don't really see anything in blue. Rise from the Tides is fairly weak game and it really doesn't look like you have enough. There is some janky combos with Epitaph Golem you're burn/removal/Tides but I don't think you have the card draw or defense to pull it off. Maybe if you had more dual land support, but the best you have is Gravestone and...yuck.

Nahiri can support a madness build and mildly support an aggro build through her - ability without compromising your mana base. And you have a pretty nuts aggro build actually.

Then again...I can't compete in Sealed to save my life anymore. I build decks that would go 2-1 in draft and they go 0-3 in sealed

You have Dual Shot, Geistblast, and Burn From Within. That's more burn and red removal than is in most red sealed pools. And if you need more removal, you've got three options in white.

I'm not seeing the pull to blue. Rise from the Tides is amazing only in a removal-filled control shell - if you're going to blue to play its creatures and not using White's removal, you're not filling your graveyard with enough instants and sorceries to make Rise hum. So you're playing... blue's Investigate cards to fill out the graveyard to make Rise work? With nothing else supporting the clue theme?

Yes, I have to play RW, at least for week one. I'm 2-0 right now, after I got quite good aggro draws both matches. Nahiri is just bonkers in sealed. I had it once in draft, and it was mixed, dominated a match, and was taken out easily in another. So far, she's been a card advantage machine in sealed. She just has so much loyalty, and you can always tick her up for free the turn you play her.

This is what I play:

I have a few good sideboard options, Dual Shot if I see a lot of one-toughness guys, Uncaged Fury against racers, Falkenrath Gorger, Expose Evil, Magmatic Chasm. I don't think Heirloom fits in here. It might be good if I went RG, but this is better. And I absolutely refuse to play Puncturing Light maindeck. I've seen it backfire so many times.

I keep forgetting the difference in power level between draft and sealed. It's been almost embarrassing beating down upon commons with my rares/mythics.

Yeah that looks solid. I debated on Arsonists because they are just so hard to deal with, two seems right. I like Heirloom because it supports a lot of your dudes though. Additional boost for Inquisitors and if you manage to get it out and flipped with your three transforms you just win. I have a soft spot for it though, its just such a cheap boost with such a huge potential upside.

Stage one over, 3-0 with RW. The deck performed perfectly, meaning, I got the Machinations down in most games, and that was it. Really, it seems that it's all about whether I can machinate. It kills blockers, keeps my guys alive, and eventually, they get through.

Time to add a booster:

Drifter is welcome, Playground is probably sideboard. But look at all that green! That is the third Courier, and the second Logger. Also, Nibilis, the second Sanguinary, and Essence Flux shore up the UR idea nicely. So, which one should it be?
RW:

Going aggro, but very dependent upon Machinations. I can also transform into a go-wide build, with two white Vessels, Playground, two Ethereal Guidance, Unruly Mob.
RG:

Just look at that curve. I even have a white splash for the Veteran. Mana should be fine, with two duals and a fetch. I think this actually has way more power than the RW build, with Heirloom being effectively a second Machinations.
RU:

And this is the deck I would enjoy playing. It is the weakest, but so sweet. Too bad we can't play games that don't count, like we could have in the old system.

So, RW or RG?

I like the GR I think, although I might switch out Machinations for True-Faith. It supports more of your cards with less reliability on mana...machinations really is nuts though, so I don't know.

As much as I love Pack Guardian, green is still a splash to your mainline red here... I wouldn't be playing any GG-in-cost cards in a 3 color deck where G isn't the primary.

IMHO this pack does really push you towards Rgw (because of the other two green cards and the fixerfetcher), I still think you hold the RW deck for now.

Oh, the Censer. How did I miss that?

Mark, green is primary in that build, all the early drops are green. But I think I agree with you, RW is just so consistent.

Its pretty close for me. Red has your important cards and splashing for white in the R/G doesn't seem like it would cause any issues. It comes down to your support cards for me 3xLogger and a total of 6 transforms with Neglected Heirloom seems to achieve a similar offense strategy to Machinations (although Machinations is a better offensive strategy overall) but allows for better defensive planning as well.

Hmmm, maybe start W/R and whenever you're on the draw switch to G/R?