Here's my pool from the tournament:
If you want to try building this pool yourself, you can download it in Magic Online .dek format here.
The first thing I did was look at the lands. I had a decent collection of lands and could definitely have a pleasant mana base for a deck without any red cards. Unfortunately, the next thing I did was look at my removal and all my good removal was red. Combined with Surrak Dragonclaw, it seemed pretty unlikely that I'd want to make a deck without at least a little red in it.
The next thing I did was look at my creatures. The green and blue creatures were great, but the creatures in every other color were pretty bad. It seems like this would lend itself to a U/G deck splashing red for removal and Surrak, but when you lay that deck out, it doesn't have a pleasing curve and the power level of the cards really starts to diminish after the first 16 or so. Plus, it would be a waste of a lot of nice lands.
Combine that with the fact that there are a couple excellent black and white cards that I'd want to play (Smite, Kill Shot, Dead Drop), and I settled on trying to make a base Temur deck with choice splashes from the other colors.
Here's where I ended up:
The mana base is a thing of beauty. I decided that, with only 3 non-morph white and black cards, I could get away with not playing any Plains or Swamps since my nonbasics provided 3 white sources and 4 black sources. After that, an even split of 4-4-4 on Mountains/Forests/Swamps provided 5 red sources for 5 non-morphs (2 morphs), 7 blue sources for 4 non-morphs (5 morphs), and 6 green sources for 4 non-morphs (2 morphs). It's one of those things that makes you think "how can this be right?" but when you break it down, it looks legit.
Some notes about my deck and my card choices:
-I didn't get to play any 2 drops. I had a few in blue and green (my "base" colors), but I wanted to try really relying on the power level of my removal and late game cards, especially after a handful of poor experiences with Mardu weenie decks.
-Just like in all my drafts, my creature count in this deck is pretty low and that continues to be a concern of mine. Fortunately all my removal is great and I have a Treasure Cruise, so I don't feel all that bad, but what tends to happen in this format is that two players will trade their removal spells early on and just sit on empty boards, or boards with a lone Highland Game or some other card that's not an attractive target for a hard hitting spell like Burn Away. This is the best argument I can come up with for the weenie-style decks, or for decks that play lots of unimpressive but probably cheap creatures. If you can curve out with creatures that aren't even really impressive but still just establish an early board presence, you can force your opponent to use their removal on your poops while you slam heavy hitters after that and kill them while they're exhausted. The problem with this strategy is that you need strong removal to clear away their strong creatures (or other strong spells that let you ignore them, like Trumpet Blast or whatever). If you can't force them to kill your crappy guys, they'll just play a big creature to control the board and you're stuck dashing through the valley.
-I played Scout the Borders, which might look out of place in this deck. However, I think it fit right in, because in addition to two turn 4 power combos (Scout + Hoot or Scout + Scavenger), it can potentially try to fix my mana if I'm in need of that, and it fills my graveyard with lots of delve fodder that I desperately need for my two power sorceries (Treasure Cruise and Dead Drop). The card selection is also always appreciated, even if it does give away my Surrak Dragonclaw occasionally.
-I didn't start the second Smite the Monstrous because I liked all my other spells, and of all the removal spells Smite is the most likely to be unusable (if your opponent has a rush deck or something). In retrospect, this was pretty bad. I think the only decks that don't rely on huge creatures to win are the token decks (which are harder to assemble in sealed), so it's probably best to just start all the Smites you open and board them out if they aren't useful.
-I played Abzan Ascendancy, which was a huge mistake. I know the card is really strong, but there were too many strikes against it in this deck that I just neglected. I'm not likely to have a ton of creatures on the board (since I only have 13 and they all cost 3+), and it's a double-double splash (a card that requires both of the two colors that I'm splashing). Considering that I only have 5 total lands that could help cast it, having to draw two of those five lands is way too demanding for an effect that isn't even at its best in my deck.
-I think I went overboard on the blue sources. It's not absolutely critical for me to have blue mana early on, since most of my blue cards are morphs, and the only one of the 4 non-morphs that would be nice to have early is Jeskai Windscout, which is not a critical component by any means.
Given those last three things, every round I cut an Island for a Plains and the Abzan Ascendancy for the second Smite the Monstrous.
I ended up going 2-1 with this deck. I lost in the first round, losing in game 1 because of my lack of white mana. My deck worked out great in game 2, but then I lost game 3 again by simply not drawing enough creatures.
In rounds 2 and 3 my deck worked out great - my cards were strong and my mana was fine. I was especially pleased with the two-card sideboard plan I worked out after G1 R1.
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