The Twelve-Step Program for the Strategy Impaired
with Scott Gerhardt

Sealing it Up - A Real Onslaught Sealed Deck

In lieu of my normal deck fix in this spot, I decided to go limited this week. Right now what I have in front of me is an Onslaught starter and two boosters. Neither are opened - yet. At this point, I have no idea what I'm gonna open, what bombs (or lack there of) I am going to see or any idea what colors I'll be playing when this thing is done. All I'm going to do first is open the starter and boosters alphabetize the cards within color, then list the cards of each color here. I'll go white, blue, black, red, green, artifact, then land. I don't want to prejudice any of your opinions as to what you would or would not play. Once I am done listing, I want you to all stop, take the listing, then build your own deck out of this. Then, come back to this article and see what deck I built and we'll compare. Sound good? Okay - here we go with the card busting:

White:
Aura Extraction
Aurification
Battlefield Medic x2
Catapult Squad
Crowd Favorite
Demystify
Dive Bomber
Glory Seeker
Gravel Slinger
Improvised Armor
Inspirit
Pacifism
Piety Charm
Shared Triumph

Green:
Barkhide Mauler
Birchlore Rangers
Elvish Guideance
Elvish Pathcutter
Elvish Pioneer
Krosan Groundshaker
Serpentine Basilisk
Silklash Spider
Snarling Undorak
Taunting Elf x2
Treespring Lorian
Wirewood Pride

Before continuing, please make sure you have had ample time to construct a deck.

(DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU HAVE BUILT A DECK)

Okay. First some initial thoughts on this deck. It's definitely all over the map. There are strong cases to be made for any of the 5 colors. I'm not even sure there is a wrong build as far as color schemes here. Ixidor allows for some very interesting possibilities in splashing nasty stuff like Silent Specter. There are a lot of good goblins in red including a commando and 2 Sparksmith plus the condor, not to mention 2 pinpoints. Green has the spider and other miscellaneous fat. White has the 2 healers along with Crowd Favorite and some okay tricks. Black has the specter and other fun things that make it attractive too. Now I'm going to take some time and analyze the playables in each color and see which ones will work well together.

Okay, upon further examination, this has to be undoubtedly the hardest Onslaught sealed I have done yet. All the colors make strong cases. Upon review, though, I think a red/blue base is the best one. Red has a blatantly ridiculous amount of removal with a couple fliers, and blue has some fliers with some really neat tricks, including Ixidor. I'm gonna splash in black for the husk, desecration, and specter. The Husk and Desecration are game-breaking in the right situation, and the specter I figure will be a bomb if I find Ixidor, and at least a 2/2 if I don't. Also on the Ixidor factor, I'm gonna splash Serpentine Basilisk without any green mana. He can wipe out a fattie if need be - solid defense. My initial deck has me at 25 cards - need to cut 2. I have the Nosy Goblin in and he's good, but just does not make the cut here. Needing to cut one more, I'll kill my Trickery Charm. It does so many great things in a pinch, but the boat is heavy and we gotta lighten. So - my deck:

Red:
Lavamancer's Skill
Goblin Taskmaster
Airdrop Condor
Embermage Goblin
Pinpoint Avalanche x2
Thoughtbound Primoc
Skirk Commando
Sparksmith x2

Blue:
Choking Tethers
Backslide
Ascending Aven
Crafty Pathmage
Mage's Guile
Mistform Stalker
Mistform Mutant
Information Dealer
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor

Black:
Silent Specter
Walking Desecration
Nantuko Husk

In a pinch against heavy fliers, I would bring in the Spider are more green. I'll go play and let you all know how it goes!

Post Matches Report:

Okay. I won 3 out of 4 games, but I don't know what this really said, though, because my wife's deck was pretty bad - her card pool was ass. If I forgot to mention this, I play sealed against my wife, Chris Gerhardt, pretty often. It's pretty nice having a wife who has top 8ed in a couple of PTQs - gives you some pretty fierce competition. J Anyway, I think the build was right, though I never unmorphed the Basilisk and the only time I unmorphed the Specter I had to actually pay for it (this was the finishing blow of game 4). Ixidor was not all that useful on the whole, though even this considered, I don't think I would have built the deck any differently. The red turned out to be required, and cards like Backslide and Choking Tethers, thought to be some of the weaker links, played strong parts in the games. There really is something sick about slapping a Lavamancer's Skill on a wizard in this environment. Two damage is just so important in many situations where 1 isn't nearly as good.

Well that's about it. I'll go back to a constructed deck fix for Friday. Hope everyone enjoyed this little look at an Onslaught sealed deck.

Until next time, keep playing!

Scott Gerhardt
Editor, Pojo.com