Sealed Deck is a very common way of getting into Limited
play. It's easier for newer players to understand than
Booster Draft and the purely random card pools can improve
their chances of getting good cards. It is also an excellent
way to improve your evaluation of a card's usefulness.
However, there is still plenty of skill involved in Sealed
Deck play.
What You'll Receive
It all starts when you receive one tournament pack from the
current main set (at this time 02/06, Ravnica) and two
booster packs, from the same block. The boosters will vary,
depending on how much of a block has been released to that
date. You
should then have a total of 75 cards, 30 of which will be
basic lands (6 of each land - they're in the tournament
pack).
Building Your Deck
You should begin by separating the cards by color (piles for
white, blue, black, etc.). Set your lands aside for the time
being. When this is done, you should go through each pile
and set aside any cards that simply are not playable - cards
with major drawbacks (Hisoka,
Deathcurse Ogre,
Mana Seism, etc.), cards that are overcosted for their
effect (Most of the
Myojins,
Reverse the Sands, etc.) and cards that interact with
other cards you don't have (Pious
Kitsune, etc.).
With the unplayables out of the picture, you can start
building your deck. When you are finished, in order for your
deck to be legal for play, it will need to contain at least
40 cards. To obtain this goal, you'll have to combine 22-23
playable creatures and spells with 17-18 appropriate basic
lands. While your deck can contain more than 40 cards, this
is not recommended - the more cards you add to your deck,
the less likely it is that you will draw the cards you
really need, when you desperately need them.
To begin, look for bombs - dragons, cheap and evasive
creatures (Nezumi
Cutthroat, etc.), efficient removal (Rend
Flesh/Spirit,
Yamabushi's Flame, etc.). NEVER discount the value of
evasion (in the form of flying, fear, etc.) - would you
rather have a vanilla 4/4 that comes out turn 5 or 6 that
your opponent keeps chump blocking? Or a 2/1 fear or flier
that you can play on turn 2 and keep punching through for 2
damage starting turn 3?
Of course, this is not to say that expensive spells are to
be discounted. A few late-game tools are always necessary in
case the game drags out for several turns. Look for things
such as mass pump & evasion (Dance
of Shadows,
Charge Across the Araba), dragons (especially the white,
blue and black ones), etc.
Always check for synergy and interactions between cards. If
you're going to run a card whose abilities activate
'whenever you play a spirit or arcane spell', it makes sense
to ensure that you are running enough spirit and arcane
spells to make that card's inclusion worthwhile.
It is highly unlikely that you will be able to build a
single-color deck. You should definitely stick to a
two-color deck if possible, with a possible splash for a
third color being the maximum. Trying to run a four or
five-color deck is a surefire way to go 0-7. I myself had to
find this out the hard way. :-)
This brings us to another aspect of deck building - mana
base. Since it is almost certain that you will be playing a
two or three-color deck, you will need to figure out the
best ratio of Color X : Color Y : Color Z for your deck.
Things to consider include how many cards of each color you
are running, whether or not any of those cards have a
double-colored mana requirement and what color your primary
win condition(s) is/are in. Since you only have 6 basic
lands of each color, you'll need to see the tournament
organizer to trade the lands you don’t need for the lands
that you do.
A quick note on any remaining cards – the 65 or so cards you
will have left after building your deck form your
"sideboard". Before the second game of each match, you may
"side in" any cards from your sideboard which might be
useful to you, now that you’ve seen what your opponent's
deck plays like. For example, if your opponent has a
Cage of Hands and/or a
Honden of Infinite Rage and you are playing white, you
might consider siding in a
Quiet Purity (if you have it) to help deal with those
threats and "siding out" whatever your weakest card was in
the first game. Of course, after the match is over, you
would return the Quiet Purity to the sideboard and re-deck
the card you sided out.
I hope you will find these general guidelines helpful. Good
luck playing in your next Limited event!
