About Joel Calafell
Joel is a Level 6 Pro Player from Spain who helped develop well-known combo decks such as Cephalid Breakfast or the
recent Cascade Swans, he loves playing almost every format and has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
- Top 8 Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur
- Winner Grand Prix Barcelona
- Three Grand Prix Top 8
- 63 Lifetime Pro Points
- Level 6 Pro Players Club member
GP Prague
Last week I talked about the M10 Sealed format. I explained how bombs don’t really affect the matches that much, and how the
commons and uncommons are the real centrepiece of any deck. I obviously didn’t
want to say that the format was only skill based, but that it wasn’t as random
as many people think.
To
begin with, my performance at GP Prague was disappointing, going 1-3
drop after my 3 byes. Most of my losses in Prague weren’t
caused directly by bombs, but more because of solid creatures and solid
removal, or a mix of both (Obviously my wins were made possible by
manascrew
on my opponent's side!). I still think, I was right to call the format
"deep" and more skill-intensive than people thought, but that doesn’t
mean you can’t
lose, just because you know the format!
The beautiful site of GP Prague. (C) by Andreas Ganz
The Pool
Anyway,
let’s look at my card pool from GP Prague first, before I analyze the matches the matches.
Black
1 Acolyte of Xathrid, 1 Assassinate, 1 Black Knight, 1 Diabolic Tutor, 2 Doom Blade, 1 Duress, 2 Kelinore Bat, 1 Unholy Strength, 1 Vampire Aristocrat, 1 Wall of Bone, 1 Warpath Ghoul, 1 Zombie Goliath
Green
1 Acidic Slime, 1 Borderland Ranger, 1 Bountiful Harvest, 1 Bramble Creeper, 1 Centaur Courser, 1 Deadly Recluse, 1 Entangling Vines, 1 Fog, 2 Llanowar Elves, 1 Lurking Predators, 1 Naturalize, 1 Overrun, 1 Runeclaw Bear
White
1 Divine Verdict, 1 Glorious Charge, 1 Griffin Sentinel, 1 Harm’s Way, 1 Holy Strength, 1 Mesa Enchantress, 1 Palace Guard, 1 Razorfoot Griffin, 2 Righteousness, 1 Soul Warden, 1 Stormfront Pegasus, 1 Tempest of Light, 2 Veteran Swordsmith
Red
1 Ball Lightning, 1 Berserkers of Blood Ridge, 1 Burning Inquiry, 1 Burst of Speed, 1 Fiery Hellhound, 1 Goblin Artillery, 1 Goblin Piker, 1 Ignite Disorder, 1 Jackal Familiar, 1 Kindled Fury, 1 Lava Axe, 1 Prodigal Pyromancer, 1 Shatter, 1 Sparkmage Apprentice, 1 Viashino Spearhunter, 1 Yawning Fissure
Blue
1 Alluring Siren, 1 Air Elemental, 1 Cancel, 1 Convincing Mirage, 1 Coral Merfolk, 1 Disorient, 1 Essence Scatter, 1 Illusionary Servant, 2 Jump, 1 Merfolk Sovereign, 1 Negate, 1 Ponder, 1 Serpent of the Endless Sea, 1 Telepathy, 1 Tome Scour, 1 Unsummon, 1 Wall of Frost, 1 Wind Drake
Artifact
Gorgon Flail, Platinum Angel, Whispersilk Cloak
Land
Glacial Fortress, Terramorphic Expanse
My Build
This is my sealed deck from GP Prague. It forms part of my GP Prague report.
Joel is back from GP Prague and brings you more insights into M10 limited as well as some funny stories in this great tournament report!
Enjoy!
| Colors |
|---|
| Artifact | 3 |
|---|
| Black | 11 |
|---|
| Land | 17 |
|---|
| White | 8 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 2 |
|---|
| 2 | 5 |
|---|
| 3 | 10 |
|---|
| 4 | 3 |
|---|
| 5 | 1 |
|---|
| 7 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Artifact | 2 |
|---|
| Artifact Creature | 1 |
|---|
| Basic Land | 17 |
|---|
| Creature | 13 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 2 |
|---|
Deck Comment
I think the only other possibilities were
straight BG or WGb splashing two Doom Blade. To me, none of them looked solid
enough, but at least I kind of felt more comfortable with the BW version,
because it looked like it had a better aggro plan and more synergy overall.
GP Prague is underway. (C) by Andreas Ganz
Some decisions I made:
- No Terramorphic Expanse in the maindeck. I
don’t think the land was needed at all in the BW build, since I almost had no double
costs or cards like Tendrils of Corruption or Armored Ascension. Also, probably
my only way to win games was to curve some guys and having a tapped land could
prove crucial.
- No Duress maindeck
- No Righteousness. Even though my deck seemed
like it would need plenty of removal to combat better creatures on the other
side of the table.
On the other hand, while I would prefer to draw
first with a GWb build, I always chose to play first with my BW build.
As you can see, there wasn’t much I could do
with the cards I was given. It’s not that I had no bombs, because I actually got
Platinum Angel, which I consider to be one of the top bombs (even though
sometimes it’s just too slow).
There were some other problems though:
- No solid creatures. Most of them
where just vanilla creatures or easy to kill creatures that were never able to
win games on their own.
- Some good tricks, but not enough of
them to compensate the fragile structure of my creatures. Besides, many of them
relied on my creatures: Whispersilk Cloak, Gorgon Flail, etc.
- Slow deck, with no solid finishers
or good early drops.
- Bad curve. Almost all my creatures
enter the battlefield on turn 3.
- Bad synergy. Combining
“walls” and attacking creatures with no evasion. The few fliers I had were
never good enough to get the job done.
During the first rounds, I took some time to play the deck against some friends. I wanted to be optimistic, because
even though I knew it was bad, it had a lot of cards which I consider
underrated. But in the end I came to the conclusion that there was no way I could win a
normal game without Platinum Angel, Whispersilk Cloak or Gorgon Flail. Which
made me think: If my good cards are artifacts anyway, maybe the correct
built would have been green-white, splashing 2 Doom Blade. But I wasn’t sure
about that. (I had thought about that too during deck building time, but never found
it to be that good anyway and it would have given me even more mana
problems)
I tried the build, played with it some games
and I didn’t like it that much either. Overrun was never that good, as my
creatures were just too random, and Lurking Predators was never going to give
me enough good creatures to make it good. Also, besides Acidic Slime or Centaur Courser the rest of the green creatures were just not solid enough to give me
enough chances to win by attacking.
After some more playtesting, I came to the conclusion, that I would do better just
switching my deck depending on the colours I was going to face.
Backup Plan
Anyway, here you can see what the backup plan looked like:
This is my sealed deck version 2 from GP Prague. It forms part of my GP Prague report.
Joel is back from GP Prague and brings you more insights into M10 limited as well as some funny stories in this great tournament report!
Enjoy!
| Colors |
|---|
| Artifact | 3 |
|---|
| Black | 2 |
|---|
| Green | 10 |
|---|
| Land | 17 |
|---|
| White | 8 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 3 |
|---|
| 2 | 6 |
|---|
| 3 | 7 |
|---|
| 4 | 2 |
|---|
| 5 | 3 |
|---|
| 6 | 1 |
|---|
| 7 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Artifact | 2 |
|---|
| Artifact Creature | 1 |
|---|
| Basic Land | 16 |
|---|
| Creature | 14 |
|---|
| Enchantment | 1 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 1 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 1 |
|---|
Who cares about day 2 anyway? (C) by Andreas Ganz
Then the GP started for me: The games were a
bit weird, in my opinion, but I lost in some funny ways! So check it out!
Round 4: Steurer, Matthäus
[AUT] with UB
Game 1
I lost the first game in an incredible way. I
started my beatings with Black Knight and Warpath Ghoul. Then, I had Whispersilk Cloak for my Ghoul so my opponent was on a clock, even considering
I had only those three spells on the table by turn five. Unfortunately my
opponent managed to summon an army of 3/3 swampwalkers in the form of Bog Wraith and Clone, and suddenly, my clock wasn’t looking that fast anymore. I tried
Verdict, but it got countered. I played Razorfoot Griffin but it got hit by a Doom Blade.
So my only option was… Harm’s way!
After his attack and thanks to my unexpected
white instant, I was on 1 life and he was at 1 too. He then played Ponder,
looked at the top three cards and… there was nothing. Then he shuffled and… found Sign in Blood targeting me. Fair enough.
Game 2
In the second game I mulliganed to five and had some
creatures, but I was never really in the game and I lost to blockers and
fliers easily.
3-1
Round 5: Jaklovsky, Lukas
[CZE] BR
Game 1
I think my opponent’s deck wasn’t that good,
but it was definitely better than mine. He had a lot of removal, it seems, but
not many good creatures, which by the way is one of the main problems this
combination of colours usually has.
I kept a 2 land hand with some 3 drops in the
first game, but saw the third land a bit too late. Or that’s what I
thought at first. Somehow, I started to trade creatures, so that I
could survive for long enough. I even played Vampire Aristocrat to play around Threaten. Suddenly, the board situation wasn’t looking that bad anymore and I even
started attacking. There was only one problem…I was at 3 life. Yes, that means
some turns later Lightning Bolt finished me off.
Game 2
For game 2, I swapped my deck into the GW
configuration with 2 splashed Doom Blade. I wanted to try that build, because I
thought it might be slightly better than the BW one against BR.
The second game was really THE GAME. I had a great board position, with Soul Warden, plenty of life, plenty of blockers, Whispersilk Cloak and Lurking Predators, so it was going to be very difficult
for me to lose that game. And indeed it was.
Why are you so fail?
With my Cloak, I started the
beatings, attacking for 2 with an equipped Borderland Ranger. The game was probably
going to be over in five attacks, because there is not much a BR deck could do about the cloak. I
had Platinum Angel in my hand and 7 lands all the time, but I didn’t really
want to play it yet, because it looked like a nice backup plan. I kept attacking but
then I realized, I could easily lose to Earthquake, so maybe keeping the Platinum Angel in hand all the time could end up being too greedy. Besides it
would be a safe option as, it wouldn’t matter much, if it died considering
my board. Or so I thought. When I played it (never got the 9 lands to play it
and equip it, though), It was killed by Doom Blade. And then, on my opponents next turn, it got
reanimated thanks to Return from Grave. At that point, I felt so stupid, but
still I would have definitely felt even worse losing to Earthquake, and by the
way, I still had one out. Acidic Slime. And I was almost drawing two cards per
turn thanks to Lurking Predators.(Plus there was no way he was attacking
into Divine Verdict, so Platinum Angel was giving me a lot of time anyway.)
Try to guess what happened some turns after,
though: I obviously didn’t draw Acidic Slime, but Doom Blade (which couldn’t kill the now "black Angel") and he drew Diabolic Tutor. This is the funny
part: He played the sorcery spell and searched for …
…
…
Whispersilk Cloak
…and equipped “MY” Angel with it.
At that point there was virtually no way I could
win…So I obviously lost some turns later, even though I should have probably
scooped.
3-2
Round 6: Renko, Andrej A
[SVN] UG
Game 1
My opponent kept a very slow hand and his first
spell was a Levitation on turn four. Then a Bramble Creeper came into play on
turn five. I Doom Bladed it, attacked with an army of creatures and he lost.
Game 2
Second game he keeps a hand with four Islands
and he’s only able to play Illusionary Servant. Believe it or not, that alone
is enough to scare all my creatures. So he stalls the board with that until he
gets a Forest, which happens four turns later. Then he plays Borderland Ranger
to get another Forest, and soon big creatures start to appear on
the other side of the table. Then some more fliers, then some more green
creatures, then Master of the Wild Hunt. Fortunately, just after that, I topdecked Diabolic Tutor, which got me Whispersilk Cloak and I attached it to Vampire Aristocrat, to deal the remaining 16 damage, sacrificing my whole team.
Sweet!
4-2
Round 7: Lelek, Jakub [CZE] WB
Game 1
Looked like we were almost playing the same
kind of deck, but most of his creatures were actually better. That seemed to be
even more obvious after he played Magebane Armor, and then White Knight. No
need to say all the creatures I had were black at that point, except for Soul Warden. Somehow, though, I managed to get into a race with my Black Knight
which was carrying a Gorgon Flail. My
opponent played Howling Banshee two times thanks to Gravedigger and soon I was
only on a one digit lifetotal, even with Soul Warden in play. I drew Harm’s Way, but it
wasn’t enough to deal with a 5/7 White Knight on steroids (at that point Jakub also
had Honor of the Pure into play), so I just chump-blocked the last turn with my Soul Warden and drew my last card…I didn’t see anything relevant and scooped.
Game 2
For the second game I turned my deck again into
the GWb deck I exposed before.
The second game was sick. I had some “fast” beats
and Griffin Sentinel, but soon my opponent played Royal Assassin. Great!
Again,
I had no ways to deal with it except for Entangling Vines, which I sideboarded
in, or Harm’s Way. Since I had drawn none of them, I just had to go for the
long game, playing more and more blockers each time, and only my Griffin Sentinel could attack. Of course that one damage per turn almost seemed like a
joke considering there was a Soul Warden on the other side of the table. So
basically the board stalled for like forever and the only thing I was drawing
were more and more useless creatures. Same for my opponent I guess. I even had Platinum Angel, but it wasn’t going to do much, and I was hoping to draw my Whispersilk Cloak or Overrun…
Then my opponent played Blinding Mage and
started to combo me, with the help of Royal Assassin. Soon, even though I was playing
one creature per turn, he was also killing one per turn, and things were
looking grim for me. Then I drew Doom Blade but he had Gravedigger to start it all over again.
By turn 80789, though, before decking myself, I
drew Overrun and…attacked for the win with one hundred creatures!
Kidding obviously. My opponent had Safe Passage...
4-3
Drop.
Sightseeing in Prague (C) by Andreas Ganz
My tournament was over, but I didn’t feel
too bad about it. I think there was little I could have done differently overall, but it is
obviously never a good experience to go 1-3 when you feel you are very well prepared for
a format. I had also been drafting a lot, and I think I would have done well
enough, had I made it to the second day. And after all Prague is a nice city to go sightseeing, so it was all ok.
So, yes, in
GP Prague I ended up 1-3 drop. That doesn’t mean I was wrong or that now I
think the format is random. Just look at
Yuuya Watanabe and his three GP top 8 in a row in the same format. How can that be
random? There are actually many things you could do to improve your game, and
I have already covered those. I know many people still complain about core
sets, but now that a core set has appeared as a Grand Prix format for the first
time in history, people that have tested enough for it, will sure agree with me,
that it was never such a hopeless format.
Since M10 format seems to be dead already, I guess I’ll be covering some
Zendikar previews next week, or maybe I’ll talk about Extended.
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Joel Calafell
Bonus
Last week’s
pool could be easily built. Most of you answered that you would build it as a
GR deck, and that’s probably the only correct choice. But that doesn’t mean
that there weren’t some decisions to take. I built it like this:
This is my M10 practice sealed pool deck. It forms part of the following feature articles:
Joel is back from GP Prague and brings you more insights into M10 limited as well as some funny stories in this great tournament report!
Enjoy!
With GP Prague looming on the horizon, Blackborder resident level 6 Pro Player Joel Calafell provides you with all the insider knowledge you need in order to master M10 limited!
| Colors |
|---|
| Artifact | 1 |
|---|
| Green | 11 |
|---|
| Land | 18 |
|---|
| Red | 9 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 5 |
|---|
| 2 | 1 |
|---|
| 3 | 7 |
|---|
| 4 | 4 |
|---|
| 5 | 3 |
|---|
| 7 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Artifact | 1 |
|---|
| Basic Land | 17 |
|---|
| Creature | 14 |
|---|
| Enchantment | 1 |
|---|
| Instant | 3 |
|---|
| Land | 1 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 2 |
|---|
In the end, I decided to not play Panic Attack and Lava Axe, because I think that, even though they fit in the deck’s strategy,
they aren’t good enough. I like Panic Attack a lot more in Draft than in
Sealed, but it has to be in very specific builds. The same thing happens with Lava Axe
(by the way, I never said the card was unplayable), but this one is even worse.
That said, I think the only swap I could see is changing Kindled Fury for one Panic Attack or for the second Oakenform, but I’m not sure I’d like to play two
of them in this deck.
About Rod of Ruin: I don’t like the card that
much, as I think it’s too slow and it never has enough targets to justify
paying 4 mana and then 3 more for every target. There’s a reason why Prodigal Pyromancer is good but not broken. I don’t know, I guess I never had good
experiences with it, but it might be one of the overhyped cards in the format.
I also decided to count Gargoyle Castle as a
spell (I think you always should, unless you are playing a very aggressive
monocolored deck), so that means 17 Lands plus the Castle. Besides, since we
have cards like Howl of the Night Pack or Protean Hydra, the extra land will sure
be useful in some situations.
Black
White
Green
Red
Email this page
the problem with your deck is that you cannot win with all the stupid 2/2s. I basically had the same BW deck but without cards like plat angel or diabolic tutor. I only started winning after changing it into a VERY bad UR build which played like 7 fillers but could actually win with its creatures.
B/W in M10 lack good creatures to keep the deck relevant in the third phase. Looking at your pool it feels like the only way to win is with the angel, elemental or cloak. Everything else is hoping for a miracle. A very poor pool.
Wow, that really explains your performance in Prague. Why on earth did you decide to play White? To beat down with its assortment of decidedly underwhelming 3-mana creatures?
Your pool was actually pretty decent except for the lack of real bombs, but it allowed you to build a deck that stood a chance of handling them. No idea if it would have been good enough to get you into day 2, but I'm sure you could have avoided the 1-3 performance:
Glacial Fortress
Terramorphic Expanse
2 Plains
6 Island
7 Swamp
Alluring Siren
Black Knight
Kelinore Bat
Kelinore Bat
Vampire Aristocrat
Wind Drake
Wall of Bone
Wall of Frost
Warpath Ghoul
Illusionary Servant
Zombie Goliath
Air Elemental
Platinum Angel
Unsummon
Harm's Way
Doom Blade
Doom Blade
Essence Scatter
Gorgon Flail
Whispersilk Cloak
Cancel
Divine Verdict
Diabolic Tutor
There's a few notable SB options like Duress or Negate, or even Coral Merfolk against fast decks, as well. You have the means to stall the ground, accumulate gradual advantage with your equipments and the Siren, neutralize with a little luck whatever game-deciding bombs your opponents may have, and win the game through the air. You were even handed the tools to splash the only really essential white cards.
Really, I've seen worse decks in M10 Sealed. The ones you built among them. What were you thinking?
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