RTR Sealed #2

Here's my pool for Return to Ravnica release event sealed #2:








This pool is pretty deep. Right away you can see that the black cards are excellent and the final version of this deck will almost certainly have black. Two Annihilating Fires out of red and an Augur Spree with a R/B guildmage are pulling me into R/B/G, but the white cards are very good too so G/B/W is also a possibility. The only certainty is that I won't play blue, because I didn't get any good blue multicolor cards and the only good blue card is the 5/6 sphinx guy. Here's my first pass at a Jund deck:

 

I'm not thrilled with this deck. Aside from the 3 removals, the red doesn't really add much, and it's tough to only splash 2 Annihilating Fires and the R/B guildmage since they both require a decent amount of red mana to use reliably. I'll try the white cards next.
 




This is looking more like a deck. The cards are all pretty powerful with lots of removal and a decent endgame. It might be difficult to jam all the colors in, since I want to be a G/B core but also play both of the double white cards, but the mana in this deck looks like it could be OK. I included the Augur Spree as a possibility since I had two Rakdos lands in addition to the Transguild Promenade, so I think it would be pretty easy to play it if I wanted to. Here's the deck I settled on:

 

This deck wasn't easy to build. There were tons and tons of playables so choosing the right number was pretty challenging. I'll explain what I was thinking as I made the last few cuts.

First I decided not to play the Augur Spree because I didn't really need the additional removal, between the two Stab Wounds and Ultimate Prices. I'd easily include it if I had a Rakdos-based deck, but I don't need to push my already nontrivial mana base further.

Next, I decided to trim one copy each of Dead Reveler, Korozda Monitor, and Rootborn Defenses. I generally think the Monitor is OK, but he's not always easy to cast in a 3 color deck, and not really worth skewing my manabase so heavily towards green. The Reveler is really good, but he's mostly an aggressive card, and I felt like having him be such a huge centerpiece of my attackers would make me a little inflexible (which isn't ideal if you aren't a fast Rakdos deck). As for the defenses, it's strong but I don't have a ton of token makers, so I won't always get to populate with it so it was easy to cut one. Perhaps I shouldn't have played either of them.

Golgari Charm was an easy cut for me. As a trick, it's kinda mediocre, since it takes some setup to get a huge advantage out of it, and you won't always be in that spot.

I generally like Volatile Rig but I haven't had much experience with him outside of Rakdos. I felt like there could be spots with this deck that I wouldn't always want to be aggressive, and there's always the risk that I could lose 2 flips and my entire token army could be taken out, so he was an easy cut.

It was hard to decide between Common Bond and Giant Growth because they're both excellent tricks. I felt like I only wanted one in this deck, and I chose the Bond because it wouldn't be too hard to cast it and it could gain more of a lasting advantage. Giant Growth is better in more aggressive decks anyway, and my deck is kinda midrange-y.

Brushstrider, Drudge Beetle, Fencing Ace, Seller of Songbirds, Soul Tithe, Sunspire Griffin

These cards are all playable, but the quality of my deck is so high that I didn't really consider them. I'm not focused on populating or curving out, and I don't have many pumps so I'm not interested in the 2 drops or the Seller. Sunspire Griffin is great, but getting him out on turn 3 would be extremely challenging for my deck, and he's not so hot after turn 3 so he gets the axe. As for Soul Tithe, it's fine but I'm not hurting for removal, so I'll save it for the board and bring it in if I need to.

Really tough deck to build. The cards in my final deck that I'm not sure should be there are Trostani's Judgment, Korozda Monitor, Rootborn Defenses, Courser's Accord, and Common Bond, but I felt like they all would play an important role in my deck.

Additionally, I'm not confident of the mana base I chose. I wanted to play 4 Forests and 5 each of Plains and Swamp, but since I felt like green mana was absolutely critical, I cut a Plains for a Forest. I don't have a very good system for determining complex manabases so I'd like to hear some thoughts on this as well.

R1

In game 1, I kept a sketchy hand on the play because it had all my colors, but I could never draw a second white for my Azorius Justicar or Martial Law and I died to Carnival Hellsteed and Sluiceway Scorpion.

Game 2 went a little better for me. I had Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage on 2, and on 3 I got to Stab Wound an unleashed Thrill Kill Assassin (which is the actual dream). He still made it a contest by putting Deviant Glee on it, but he never drew more than 3 lands and eventually died to Knightly Valor.

My draw was very good in game 3. Centaur's Herald on 1, Guildmage on 2, no removal from him ever (so my centaur army got pretty big). He unleashed all the guys he played, which meant that we were trading huge swings back and forth, but eventually when he had one guy that could stop my attack from being lethal I had Ultimate Price.

R2

The hand I kept game 1 was weird. It didn't have green mana, but it didn't have green cards either. The game was interesting until I burned my second Ultimate price in response to a Trostani's Judgment to keep him from populating, and then he played Angel of Serenity which I never drew an answer for. (I used the first one on an Axebane Guardian when he was stuck on 4 lands.) Obviously had I known about that card, I'd have conserved it, but oh well.

I got destroyed in game 2 because I didn't draw a 4th land on time and died to two early drops and a Giant Growth.

Annoying round 2. I probably didn't need to use my 2 removal spells in those 2 spots in game 1, but I did and I got punished.

R3

My opponent this round had a speedy Rakdos deck. I took tons of damage early in game 1 from Daggerdrome Imp and Guttersnipe before I could stick a defense of Towering Indrik. Even that didn't stick around long after he had Launch Party. I simply couldn't manage my removal well enough to avoid taking tons of damage from his guys and I died.

Game 2, I had a better start and was able to control his creatures better, but I still had some tough decisions to make as far as which creatures to actually remove. Sewer Shambler, Guttersnipe and Lobber Crew all present very annoying, repeatable damage that I can't stop. After I stabilized the board and had him dead to one attack, he topdecked Pursuit of Flight (which he had blue mana for as well) and killed me with a flying Batterhorn. Frustrating.

R4

In game 1, I got to unleash a Dead Reveler with Corpsejack Menace in play, then follow it up with Martial Law. That card is really tough to beat if you're behind, so I was able to clean up even after getting nugged for 3 damage and my hand with the XBR mythic rare thing.

My draw was pretty good in game 2, with turn 3 Dreg Mangler, turn 4 Towering Indrik, turn 5 Knightly Valor. The only 3 cards my opponent ever played were two Stonefist Crocodiles and a Carnival Hellsteed (which immediately got targeted with my Trostani's Judgment) so I won this match pretty easily.


Another 2-2. I definitely liked my deck more than in sealed #1, even though I'm not sure if I built it properly. This pool was certainly a lot better, and could have been built in any number of different ways so I'm very interested in other opinions and approaches.