Well, it's out now, and I lost every match in two attempts at sealed, six losses in a row.

Despite this, I'm pleased with the new cards. I had some mis-plays in some of the matches, but it was mostly just drawing all the wrong cards while my opponents drew all the right ones, like one might lose regular matches. At least sealed gives tons of cards in a way that is useful for building up a bit of a collection of a new set in Arena.

Maybe I'll do better at the pre-release from the experience with the cards from the set thanks to Arena?

Is this the thread where we post our sealed decks/results and be smug/moan about them?

Or for that matter go "HELP it's all wronnng, what colours even work here, is anything playable?"


I'll start with an unexpected success:




I think I should have been RUG - good fixing and a lot of good removal - but I just couldn't pass playing mass manipulation and it's still a solid deck with lots of beefy haste.

Is there anything to do right now other than Sealed?

Today bo3 drafts. In 2 weeks after they've milked cash out of people with their overpriced formats there'll be quick draft.

Bit of a surprise for me as well going 7-2 with this. Faced a whopping four opponents with Theater of Horrors and went 2-2 in those matches. Biogenic Upgrade on Azorius Knight-Arbiter was responsible for three wins itself - the last of which was paired with Gruul Beastmaster for a 12/9 unblockable + 6/6 attack. Applied Biomancy impressed along the way, swinging combat a few times while setting my opponents back. Wasn't sure if instant speed would make Titanic Brawl much more viable than Prey Upon in GRN, but green's beefiness this time around makes it worthwhile anyway. Dovin didn't do much the few times I drew him.



Opened and built this, won't get around to playing till tomorrow though. Got an Archway Angel and Carrion Imp, though I can't really justify either around the rest of the build. Also have a Windstorm Drake I'd like to put in, but splashing off a single Azorius Guildgate (no Gateway Plazas even) seems inadvisable.

Looks good, Ethereal Absolution seems utterly game-ending, hopefully you draw it often and ruin some peoples days

So envious, I had enough gems and decided what the hell let's play my first sealed event ever, and opened 2 Rampage of the Clans and 2 Revival // Revenge I don't have too many great uncommons, either, and have cards like Clear the Stage with no good 4-power creature to enable it.

I'm probably going to play some 3-color monstrosity and flunk out.

Had some gems saved up; was able to go for 3 Sealed events and might be able to go for a 4th later.

1) My first pool looked a lot better than it played out. The power level was through the roof with 3 Lawmage's Binding, Sphinx of New Prahv and Mass Manipulation being very strong highlights. However, I did not have any good 2-drops aside from a single Concordia Pegasus. When building the deck I made a few decisions I'd question in hindsight, such as splashing for Seraph of the Scales (I could probably afford it given that two Vizkopa Vampire allowed me to run 2 Swamps alongside the Orzhov Guildgate and two Azorious Guildgate), opting to run my gate payoff cards (which upped my curve significantly and meant I had to play two Simic Guildgate without any green cards), and not running my mediocre 2-drops Prowling Caracal and Persistent Petitioners). Maybe that more 'normal' approach would have served me better. Went 3-3.

2) The second pool was about the polar opposite of the first pool. This time the power level was super low (Captive Audience and Precognitive Perception were my only two good Rares), but the deck had a much better curve. Unfortunately, the deck was also fairly low on removal, which came back to bite me. 3-3 again.

3) My third pool was better again. This time my best colour combination by far was Simic (Simic Ascendancy, Biogenic Ooze) with a red splash (Ravager Wurm as well as Collision // Colossus, with an Open the Gates and a Gruul Guildgate to facilitate the splash). The deck worked really well overall, even if I can now scratch failing to find with Incubation // Incongruity off my Allegiance Limited bucket list). 5-3.

This is the thread where we complain about the release rollout right? I didn't save up enough gem stones to do sealed or traditional draft so I have, like, four RNA cards. Waiting to get enough to do a sealed I guess? But I might just get impatient and blow all my coin on a core set draft.

Use PlayAllegeiance (spelling?) code that everyone can use once. I think it gets you three boosters.

Sealed went better than expected, started with ~2.3k gems I'd saved and ended up doing 3 sealed pools before dropping under 2k. Not sustainable though, think I went 6-3, 7-1, 5-3 and then couldn't join again. Did a trraditional draft with what I had left and got a 5-1 so in theory I could do another sealed but it just doesn't seem worth it - the deck building phase is atrocious with the clunky and cluttered UI and no way to save decks just makes the entire thing unpleasant.

Traditional draft was good in comparison, even though the reward weighting is again designed to punish you for getting a crappy deck or having an unlucky streak. Was very nice to be playing bo3 though.

This maybe does't fit here, but we don't have the Drafting like a Boss for Allegiance up yet.

Like AD2016, I decided to make a Traditional Draft with my gems instead of waiting for my fourth Sealed, and also went 5-1.

Here's some of my impressions:
1) Bots seem to not value Black highly. I derive this assumption off my impressions from the draft (Black seemed fairly open) as well as the high number of opponents in Black (2 Rakdos, 1 Mardu, 1 base-Orzhov Gates; my other two opponents were a Gruul mirror and a very good Simic deck (which was my only loss) ). My main reason for not ending up in Black was that Red was also very open and I had better Gruul cards than Rakdos cards.

2) There's not many good 2-drops, so prioritize them accordingly and expect to end up with 3-4 of them. Scorchmark can double down as a turn-2-play to prevent you from getting overrun; easily the second best red common after Skewer the Critics.

3) You'll generally be able to trigger Spectacle fairly easily and don't need many specific enablers unless you're going really deep on it (8+ Spectacle cards). Since it's so easy to trigger, Gruul (Skewer the Critics, Light Up the Stage) and Orzhov (Blade Juggler, Dead Revels) are fighting you for many of the good payoffs, so don't expect to get to that threshold very often. This also means cards like Spear Spewer and Ill-Gotten Inheritance might be a bit worse than you think (Spear Spewer is still one of Red's best 5 Commons, but it's nowhere near as good as Scorchmark IMO).

4) Rampaging Rendhorn is very strong. I found 4/4 Haste to be the generally preferred mode in my Gruul deck, but could see that being flipped in Simic. Either way, it's the preferred 5-drop over Mammoth Spider in aggressive decks (defensive decks may enjoy Reach and 5 toughness).

5) Don't forget that Gift of Strength grants Reach! This makes it a very strong defensive combat trick as taking out an unsuspecting Chillbringer, Aeromunculus or Sphinx of New Prahv is very definitely a thing. I started one each Gift of Strength and Storm Strike and would end up boarding in the second Gift of Strength, boarding out Storm Strike, or both in a decent number of match-ups.


Oh, and btw, some interesting picks from my side:
P1P1: Captive Audience, Dagger Caster or Get the Point?

Crashed out of my second trad draft 1-2, one game mana screwed after going 1-0 up and another game to just a much stronger deck. And the reward structure means that's the end of new limited for me until I get enough gold to convert to 500 gems. I know this setup is ment to encourage me to spend money, but it does the exact opposite to me, it's so obviously grasping that I have a visceral antipathy towards it.

My observations so far from sealed and draft: gruul is stronk, Rhythm of the Wild is a P1P1 and stone wins games. riot is very powerful and the riot commons are worthy early pickups (the Rendhorn that Modulo mentioned for example). Orzhov is good, but you need to open some good cards and removal or it'll get run over by 4/4s. Simic has some of the best cards and specifically shares the claim for best 2 drops with gruul, it can also by very flexible ranging from 6/6 beaters to the powerful Sharktocrab, simic ascendancy and skitter eel impressed me too.

If I was going to choose a favourite I'd say simic followed by gruul. But I think it's easier to put together a strong gruul deck with just commons/uncommons.


@Modulo I'd be tempted to take the dagger caster to stay a bit open, but get the point is better (and maybe splashable) so might be the right pick.

id Get the Point for sure (the scry at that point in the game is excellent, i could see playing it on my upkeep)

Yeah I used that. Opened two Benthic Biomancers lol.



Exactly, if I'm gonna spend money I would just go to an in-store event. Playing online, as fun as it is, is not enough of an "event" to make me want to spend money. Wish they'd made the release a little more accessible.

If you went/go to the real pre-release, there is a token card with a code on the back that you can use in Arena. I'm not sure what it is for though, haven't tested it yet.

Edit: Just tested it, it offers a traditional draft entry token.

Had several 7-Xs in Arena, but that WB deck finally got me my first 7-0. Ethereal Absolution was just bonkers, ended the game every time it came down. In one match it took out a Ministrant of Obligation, the spirits it would've made, and another spirit for good measure.



Working with a four mythic pool now, not sure what direction to go with it though. Tempted to go GWur and play just about all of them, not sure if Domri is worth the splash though.



GUw looks a bit more consistent with the 2x Aeromunculus, but there's not quite as much upside.



Anything I'm overlooking? 4c worth the risks?