En route, I get a call from my old friend J. Evan Dean, a fellow greybeard best known for his second-place finish at Canadian Nationals many moons ago and for inventing the Ghazi-Glare Standard deck. He’s coming down to London to play the Pro Tour Qualifier and is looking for a place to crash. And with that, our party is assembled.

Now, any time I make plans to test for a tournament, very little actual testing happens. We had planned to play the 5:00 P.M. Daily Event, but we immediately audibled to all-you-can-eat sushi. If I have a weakness, it’s that. Sufficiently stuffed with delicious salmon, we did actually play the 9:00 P.M. tournament to a disappointing 2–2 finish. It was enough to refamiliarize myself with the cards and iron out some details of the format.

After nearly missing the tournament because all four of us incorrectly assumed the PTQ was going to be at the same place it always has been, one hundred forty-six players and I sat down to play the Pack Rat Lottery. Here’s what I had to work with:

"PTQ Sealed Pool"

• White (14)
• 1 Sunspire Griffin
• 1 Azorius Justiciar
• 1 Trostani's Judgment
• 1 Swift Justice
• 2 Trained Caracal
• 1 Rest in Peace
• 1 Azorius Arrester
• 1 Armory Guard
• 2 Keening Apparition
• 1 Selesnya Sentry
• 2 Avenging Arrow

• Blue (13)
• 1 Cancel
• 1 Chronic Flooding
• 1 Crosstown Courier
• 1 Doorkeeper
• 1 Downsize
• 1 Faerie Impostor
• 1 Hover Barrier
• 1 Inspiration
• 2 Isperia's Skywatch
• 1 Soulsworn Spirit
• 2 Tower Drake

• Black (12)
• 1 Tavern Swindler
• 2 Deviant Glee
• 2 Grim Roustabout
• 2 Ogre Jailbreaker
• 1 Mind Rot
• 1 Daggerdrome Imp
• 1 Sewer Shambler
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 1 Launch Party

• Red (7)
• 1 Electrickery
• 2 Explosive Impact
• 1 Survey the Wreckage
• 2 Tenement Crasher
• 1 Viashino Racketeer

• Green (12)
• 1 Druid's Deliverance
• 1 Mana Bloom
• 2 Rubbleback Rhino
• 1 Brushstrider
• 1 Drudge Beetle
• 1 Golgari Decoy
• 1 Stonefare Crocodile
• 1 Axebane Guardian
• 1 Giant Growth
• 1 Oak Street Innkeeper
• 1 Urban Burgeoning

• Multicolored (20)
• 1 Deathrite Shaman
• 1 Grisly Salvage
• 2 Trestle Troll
• 1 Thoughtflare
• 1 Auger Spree
• 1 Chemister's Trick
• 1 Essence Backlash
• 2 Goblin Electromancer
• 1 Rakdos Charm
• 1 Rakdos Ragemutt
• 1 Treasured Find
• 1 Rakdos Shred-Freak
• 1 Centaur Healer
• 1 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
• 1 Lotleth Troll
• 1 Rites of Reaping
• 1 Common Bond
• 1 Call of the Conclave

• Artifacts & Nonbasic Lands (6)
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Civic Saber
• 1 Izzet Keyrune
• 1 Rakdos Keyrune
• 1 Transguild Promenade

Buy This Deck

One good thing about this Sealed format is that it’s pretty easy to build your deck in most cases. You just take all your bombs and add enough filler to bring it up to twenty-three playables. That’s exactly what I did here. My only good cards are Trostani and Lotleth Troll. I don’t expect to be populating very much, but the guild leader is still pretty good as a big butt that gains life. Here’s what I registered:

"No-Pack-Rat Sealed"

• Creatures (14)
• 1 Axebane Guardian
• 1 Azorius Justiciar
• 1 Brushstrider
• 1 Centaur Healer
• 1 Daggerdrome Imp
• 1 Drudge Beetle
• 1 Golgari Decoy
• 1 Lotleth Troll
• 1 Sewer Shambler
• 1 Stonefare Crocodile
• 1 Sunspire Griffin
• 2 Rubbleback Rhino
• 1 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice

• Spells (9)
• 1 Avenging Arrow
• 1 Common Bond
• 1 Giant Growth
• 1 Launch Party
• 1 Swift Justice
• 1 Trostani's Judgment
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 1 Call of the Conclave
• 1 Rites of Reaping

• Lands (17)
• 4 Swamp
• 6 Forest
• 6 Plains
• 1 Transguild Promenade

Buy This Deck

My game plan was to overwhelm my opponents with a bunch of crappy creatures and hope to kill them before they could bring their bombs online. I only decided to play one Avenging Arrow, a card I normally like, because it’s much worse on the offensive. I also wanted to play the full complement of pump spells, and I wanted to make sure I had a lot of creatures, so my spell slots were actually very tight. I had no shortage of dorky creatures, though. I decided not to play Deathrite Shaman since it doesn’t attack very well and its abilities are best suited for the long game. I don’t want games to go long because I’m just going to assume each opponent’s deck is better than mine. The other creature choices were fairly marginal. Deciding which Grizzly Bears variant to play is mostly irrelevant. I normally don’t like Brushstrider, but 3 power on turn two is what I’m looking for.

Round 1 vs. Alvaro Marques

Round 2 vs. Mario Pavel Rodriguez Rentaria

In Game 2, I was again facing an uphill battle. Not only was I outmatched in card quality, I was running out of time. Both of us were playing somewhat slowly. I actually had a lot of difficult decisions to make since I not only had to play perfectly to win, but I also needed to be lucky. I’m not sure how difficult my opponent’s decisions were, but from my point of view, he always had a very obvious line that he spent a few minutes to not take every turn. He wasn’t quite at the point of slow playing, but it did make my chances of winning slimmer. I had planned on killing his Guildmage with my Golgari Decoy, but Skymark Roc was going to make racing impossible, so I was forced to trade my scavenger and a pump spell for his flyer. He followed up with a Deathrite Shaman, which must have gained him at least 10 life through the course of the game. That made me regret not playing my own since I can fizzle his activations. He never used it to make me lose life, and he missed an on-board kill for several turns. With the round about to end, I just started playing as quickly as possible and turning all my guys sideways, hoping that he wouldn’t see that he could kill me at any time. He was also using his Deathrite Shaman at strange times, such as during blockers. This allowed me to scavenge onto my Daggerdrome Imp, increasing significantly my odds of winning.

“Look, I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’re going to win this match; I’m just fighting for that one percent.”

The judge ruled in my favor as expected. However, the round ended in the time it took to resolve the situation, so the best I could hope for was a draw. I continued to alpha strike, but he had a removal spell for my last blocker and attacked me for exactly lethal. The top card of my deck was a potentially game-winning Launch Party. I told him I had no hard feelings about the whole prison-rules thing and wished him luck. He ended up making Top 8, so he was definitely doing something right.

Round 3 vs. Scott Bathurst

Round 4 vs. Mathew Smith

There was some confusion from my opponent when he thought we had played two games already. I kept trying to tell him that was only Game 1 and showed him my score sheet that only had one line of life totals, but he kept insisting that I won the match.

“Look man, would I really lie to you to not win the match?”

We laughed about it for a bit, and he explained that he only had two hours of sleep the night before and wasn’t thinking straight. That’s understandable; I’ve definitely been there.

For Game 2, I looked at my opening hand and saw both Trostani and Call of the Conclave. I can’t not keep that hand! It was a bit short on lands, but the lands it did have were the right colors. My first draw of the game was a Transguild Promenade, and I was set. Mathew was off to a very aggressive start, but once I started making a Centaur Healer every turn, it was only a matter of time. I was forced to chump a giant Wayfaring Temple for a long time while I missed land drops, but soon enough, I had enough lands to make a token and leave up mana for Launch Party while playing around Judge's Familiar. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t lose to something silly such as a Chorus of Might, so I played as conservatively as possible. I eventually drew enough lands so I could further develop my board, and once Lotleth Troll came down, I was no longer forced to chump-block. Winning from that position was academic.

Round 5 vs. Tyler Hortie

I mulliganed in Game 1 and couldn’t get much of anything going. Tyler’s first play was a turn-three Wayfaring Temple, but I couldn’t find a way of removing it before Knightly Valor turned it into a real threat. Anything I played was comically easily dealt with, and once he played a Collective Blessing, I instantly scooped.

In Game 2, Tyler played a turn-four Golgari Longlegs off a Chromatic Lantern. It was soon joined by a Collective Blessing. I had been gaining a lot of life so far with Stonefare Crocodile and Centaur Healer, so I was legitimately capable of racing it. I added a Rubbleback Rhino to my board and passed the turn, unable to do anything. He attacked, and I debated triple-blocking, and using a Giant Growth. However, if he had a pump spell of his own, I’d be absolutely destroyed. I decided not to chance it. I was at 26, after all, so I could afford to take a hit. He played a Sunspire Griffin post-combat, which I killed at the end of turn with an Ultimate Price, fully intending to attacking for 9 on my turn.

Mathematically eliminated from Top 8, I dropped from the tournament. My deck was a pile of poop, and there was no way I was sticking it out for three more rounds to try to win packs. I did stick around to try to get some work done. I left just as the Top 8 was starting and was glad to see Rich Hoaen in it. He ended up winning it all, so at least there’s some justice in this world.

Hope you guys enjoyed the report. Drafting with Big Nass is going to stay in hiatus for a little while since I’ve grown to dislike this Limited format quite a lot. But you can expect it to come back in full force when Gatecrash comes out. I’ll being doing articles about whatever strikes my fancy, but suggestions are always welcome. When my exams are done mid-December and I have a bit more free time, I’ll look into putting some more content on my channel. Until next time, thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, and may your Sealed pools be full of bombs.

Nassim Ketita

arcticninja on Magic Online

http://www.youtube.com/nketita