Theory of Sealed

A common misconception is that Sealed decks are less powerful than draft decks. That claim is true insofar as a typical draft deck will be favored against a typical Sealed deck, but it glosses over key differences between the two formats. A good draft deck can be a poor Sealed deck, and vice versa. Similarly, players who dismiss Sealed as “bomb-driven” but don’t act on that characterization are missing the point.

Draft decks are defined by synergy. In draft, the filler-level cards get distributed to the players whose decks can best utilize them. For example, if you pick a card like 《High Alert》 early in a draft, you’ll naturally prioritize cards like 《Senate Courier》, 《Junktroller》, and 《Azorius Knight-Arbiter》 more highly and will likely end up with every copy of these cards in the 24 packs at your table. In Sealed, you’re stuck with the commons and uncommons you happen to open in your 6 packs and are highly unlikely to be able to support a card like 《High Alert》.

On the other hand, Sealed decks are defined by power. 4 players in Sealed open as many packs as 8 players do in draft, and overall the same number of players open twice as many packs. This means there are twice as many bomb rares, sweepers, and premium removal spells in circulation. Furthermore, players will never actively get cut out of a color in Sealed. They’ll ultimately play the majority of the bombs, sweepers, and premium removal they open.

To illustrate, I consider 7 cards in Ravnica Allegiance (RNA) limited to be a cut above every other card in the set: 《Ethereal Absolution》, 《Mass Manipulation》, 《Biogenic Ooze》, 《Angel of Grace》, 《Hydroid Krasis》, 《Skarrgan Hellkite》, and 《Ravager Wurm》. The probability of opening one of these cards in a single pack is (2*2 + 5) = 9/121. An average of 9*24/121 = 1.785 of these cards will be opened per draft, so generally only 1 or 2 players at the table, or 22.314%, will have them.

In Sealed, the probability that a single pool contains one of these cards is 1 – (1 – 9/121)^6 = 0.371. More than a third of players in a given field will have at least one of these mega-bombs. In Cleveland, 254 out of 1231 players, or 20.634%, made the day 2 cut. More players opened 1 these 7 rares than made day 2.

Note that this calculation also excludes powerful uncommons like 《Mortify》 and 《Gatebreaker Ram》 and merely great rares like 《Seraph of the Scales》 and 《Guardian Project》. Sealed is a minefield of powerful cards.

To succeed in Sealed, you need to maximize the bombs you open and be prepared to beat your opponent’s bombs. Hard counterspells like 《Thought Collapse》 and discard spells like 《Drill Bit》 are great because they have the potential to cleanly answer any card. Clunky or inconsistent answers like 《Expose to Daylight》, 《Bring to Trial》, and 《Consign to the Pit》 all go up in stock.

Ways to recur cards like 《Regenesis》 and 《Dead Revels》 all get much better when you have access to creatures like 《Biogenic Ooze》 and 《Ravager Wurm》. Even though 《Regenesis》 is barely playable in draft, it can be one of your best cards in Sealed. Using 《Dead Revels》 or 《Regenesis》 to play your bombs a second time isn’t a pipe dream, it’s valuable option that might be necessary.

You want to avoid random creatures like 《Territorial Boar》 and 《Sage's Row Savant》. This is true in RNA limited in general, but it’s particularly true in Sealed. It’s exceedingly unlikely that these medium creatures will have a meaningful impact on the game before rares and uncommons, or even the humble 《Senate Courier》, obsolete them.

One mistake a lot of players make is to try to salvage a weak Sealed pool by building an aggressive deck of cheap creatures and combat tricks, aiming to win before their opponents can deploy their bombs, but this is rarely an effective strategy even if you open the right cards for it.

Combat tricks and Auras, tools that aggressive draft decks frequently lean on, are weaker in Sealed because decks will have more and better removal. Sealed opponents are much more likely to play a card like 《Hydroid Krasis》 or 《Ethereal Absolution》 that combat tricks simply won’t beat. That said, you should be prepared for other players employing this strategy and should play enough defensive tools that they don’t have totally free reign.

Day 1: Sealed (9-0)

I opened the following Sealed pool:

Around 10 minutes into deckbuilding, I’d already resigned myself to missing day 2. My pool didn’t have any of the best rares, and I couldn’t find a deck in any 2- or even 3-color combination that I was happy with. Most of my best creatures were blue and green and all my removal was in black and white. I didn’t think a base BW deck would be powerful enough with just 《Seraph of the Scales》 and 《Spawn of Mayhem》. I decided I needed to just play all my best cards and hope to get lucky with my colored mana.

I wound up on the following build:

The cost you pay for a crazy, extreme manabase like this one is that you’ll typically be missing a color of mana for much of the game and may not be able to cast your spells in a timely manner. For a typical, 2-color limited deck, I maximize my chances of having access to both colors of mana and proceed with the assumption that I’ll be able to cast my spells. For a deck like this one, I instead try to build my deck such that having individual colors early is less critical.

For example, “splashing” 《Open the Gates》 or 《Tithe Taker》 might seem strange. However, if I don’t have green mana for 《Open the Gates》, that means the other lands I drew likely produce my other colors of mana and I don’t really need 《Open the Gates》. Similarly, 《Tithe Taker》 is a powerful defensive play early and an useful option for double-spelling later in the game if I’ve been missing white mana. You need the spells you can cast to buy time for the ones you can’t.

Cards like 《Seraph of the Scales》, 《Sphinx's Insight》, and 《Zegana, Utopian Speaker》 that can provide multiple spells of value are also key, again to make up for the spells you can’t cast. That maybe goes without saying, since it’s not clear to me why you’d play a manabase like this without those cards.

I chose not to play 《Bring to Trial》 or 《Expose to Daylight》, cards I’d normally be happy to maindeck in Sealed, because I didn’t think I could afford the risk of having situational cards on top of cards I couldn’t cast because of my manabase. That said, I do regret playing 《Windstorm Drake》 over 《Bring to Trial》 and made that change during sideboarding in most rounds. 《Bring to Trial》 isn’t as situational as I thought it was, and 《Windstorm Drake》 isn’t as impactful.

CC spells such as 《Spawn of Mayhem》 are, of course, out of the question.

My hardest decision in deckbuilding was whether to play 《Flames of the Raze-Boar》 off of my 《Rakdos》 and 《Gruul Guildgate》s. I wanted to the Gates anyway for 《Archway Angel》, so the question was mostly whether I was willing to accept the additional inconsistency. I ultimately decided that my deck did need the additional late-game tool. Whether or not it was right, 《Flames》 outright won me multiple close games throughout the day.

Despite the real risks attached to these manabases, I do think people underestimate how frequently they function because they’re so atypical. For example, with the manabase I played, not considering 《Open the Gates》 and not accounting for red mana, these are the probabilities of having my colors given I’ve drawn 3, 4, 5, and 6 lands:

# of lands: probabilities of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 colors

By the time I’ve drawn 6 lands, I’m a solid favorite to have all my colors. With the manabase I should have played, with one fewer 《Swamp》 and one more 《Plains》, the numbers are around 2% higher across the board:

You might notice that every land adds a huge % to the chance of having all 4 colors. Choosing to draw is particularly valuable for decks with inconsistent mana.

My script, if you’d like to play around with it yourself. (It’s probably simple to do this closed-form, but I don’t want to figure out how.)

To figure out the mana for these kinds of decks, I start by adding up the colored sources in all my Guildgates and Lockets, look at the spells I have in each color, and then add basics to taste. I lean towards having a more even distribution of colors, since you do ultimately need to draw all your colors. I try to have 7 or more sources for my main colors and no fewer than 6.

So for this deck, I “naturally” had 4 G, 4 U, 2 B, 3 W, and 2 R. Most of my early plays were U, G, and W and I was leaning somewhat on 《Sphinx's Insight》, 《Open the Gates》, and 《Senate Guildmage》 to fix my mana, so I wanted to be base Bant. Even though I had a lot of black spells, having black early wasn’t as important.

So I needed 3 《Forest》s, 3 《Island》s, 4 《Plains》, and 4 《Swamp》s to get the ideal number of sources. With 6 Guildgates, I had 11 basics to play with. That’s 3 too many lands, so I cut a 《Forest》, a 《Swamp》, and a 《Plains》.

You’ll notice that I actually registered 4 《Swamp》s and 2 《Plains》 instead of 3 of each and I’m still not entirely sure how that happened. I must have miscounted my mana during deckbuilding and just played 1 fewer white source than I intended. So it goes.

Actual Games

The tournament itself went smoothly. I drew favorable distributions of lands, spells, and colors throughout the day and only had to fight through some 《Biogenic Ooze》s, a 《Skarrgan Hellkite》, and a 《Dovin, Grand Arbiter》. Light work, as far as the rares in this set go.

Somewhat amusingly, I was hoping to lose my die rolls throughout most of the day since I very much wanted to draw and didn’t want to reveal that preference. I successfully managed to lose 6 of my first 8 die rolls, and even the two opponents I had to choose to draw against obliged me by going first anyway in subsequent games. I did manage to win the die roll that mattered though, in round 9 against Dustin Stern, and got to be on the draw in a critical 3rd game.

The highlight of my day was getting to live the dream with 《Combine Guildmage》 and 《Final Payment》 after Dustin locked my 《Seraph of the Scales》 down with a 《Lawmage's Binding》 in game 1 of that match. Good old Simic-Orzhov.