Lend me your Sealed Knowledge

[SaintFuse]

Hi everyone

Now that I have my first The Spoils Sealed 6-Player Tournament Kit I would appreciate some insight on a few things so that I can make everyones Spoils experience that much more fun.

I assume everyone knows what I have in a tournament kit?

6 Competition Packs + 12 Booster

Okay now what I would like some help on is...

1. Generally for sealed play how many Trades are you going to dip into?

From my brief (but great) experience with the game, it seems like Sealed allows for up to 2/3 Trades is this correct?

2. I realize from what Ive read that resource count depends on the type of deck your running in say a Constructed Format, but is it a bit more general and streamlined for Sealed? aka 15-18ish resources?

I know I have more questions, but I will ask those a bit later

Thanks for everything

[jedibcg]

Seems like you answered all the questions yourself...and pretty correctly too.

[1r0n w!LL]

I agree except that building a strong 2 trade in sealed not likely. And if your pool is weak enough you might need to go 4 trade.

4 trade is generally done by starting 1 resource for 2 different trades and resources from other trades in the deck. You play the strongest 1 threshold cards you can find with the starting 2 trades.

3 trades is the norm and can be done with a number of different resource configurations depending on your pool.

[Kallen000]

I have played 4 trades before and won so it is possible. What I would recommend is you go 3 just because forcing 2 usually means you are playing with some weak cards. However a lot of times your going to half to say no to some cards that are good like pogo bear that have a weak surrounding cardpool because it is 3 threshold. Just be weary of your thresholds and usually my resources is around 17.

[ANIMEniac]

In Sealed, I can usually get away with just running 2 trades. It makes the deck consistant. I look at creature numbers first to decide what faction i would like to run. Then see what creatures would have nice effects/synergy from my first pick. Adding a 3rd would depend if I need mroe removal or tricks to help.

After the Invitational, I begin to lean more to 3 trade because I can add more cards that help in areas a 2 trade would lack in (more removal, draw, etc)

[Excel Saga]

Steps I would take at sealed

divide my cards into 5 stacks each by color
then divide stacks into one for characters, one for non characters
so now I have 10 stacks infront of me

I check to see if 2 colors have enough stuff to build a 2 color deck with otherwise I say okay which 3 colors do I want to run this time

Cards to count first, which colors give me the most character removal
Which colors give me the best creatures

Build for stall deck prefered colors ( Banker, arcanist, warlord or rogue)
2 starting resources same color
8
8
27 other cards half 10-14 cards hopefully from starting color

General strategy for stall deck in sealed is, how do I stay alive long enough, till I draw my large character or covert win condition. In opening hand you want resources cause ur gonna be casting 1-2 characters to stall a winnie rush then resourcing alot so 3-5 resource opening hand is good. So you drop resources till you have 9 then keep top decking useful cards. Alot of resources early is good cause you dont want to draw into them later. Basically your not gonna ever out race your opponent, your gonna keep all your characters as ways to keep your life points from droping to zero while you keep hitting your opponent with your large win condition.
General character brake down few if any costing less than 3
Want to cast about 1 character a turn
Turn 1 develop a resource, pay 3 draw a card
Turn 2 develop a resource, pay 4 develop a resource
Turn 3 develop a resource, drop a character
Turn 4 develop a resource, develop a resource if your not almost dead
Keep top decking larger creatures than them and drawing a card

Build for agro/rush deck prefered colors ( warlod, rogue, gear or arcanist )
2 starting resources same color
7
7
29 other cards half 10-14 cards hopefully from starting color

General stragegy for agro deck in sealed is, which characters do I have with more than 3 life. Basically anything that survives a flaming bardusa, target practice, or takes 6 resources with skewer to kill is good. In opening hand you want all cards of your starting color and you basically keep 1 resource of the other 2 colors only, mill the rest and hope to draw more main color cards. How do I use my cards to inflict as much damage as possible with losing as little field presence as possible. ( have a win condition they wont suspect once you start to slow down, like dragon juice, bask bile, murderous commander, )
General character brake down nothing costing more than 4 and 1-2 threshold
Turn 1 drop a character
Turn 2 drop a character
Turn 3 drop a character
Turn 4 drop 1-2 characters
Be so aggresive basically that they have 7 or less
Later your willing to sacrifice characters just to deal 2 damage, and their gonna want to block everything cause they fear the dragon juice

[grkgod0800]

i agree with excel saga in some sense but dont forget to throw in monster beaters... they are too hard to get around in sealed with limited removal... they key is too balance a good synergetic deck with so many options.... you wanna always have outs in your sealed deck.... keep that in mind