top of page

Ixalan Sealed League - Opening Tournament


Howdy Internetlings, Its League time again, and after the big (real world) move, I'm glad to finally have a chance to do some Magic writing. First, I want to say that I've been looking forward to Ixalan League since the set had started spoiling, because I really didn't think draft would give you the opportunity to explore tribal synergies in depth. Boy was I wrong about that, but still, the league environment should be even better, right? When I finally take the video for my sealed pool breakdown I'll put a link to it here, but for now let's take a look at a snapshot.

The more astute among you may have noticed quite a few doubles in the pool. I've been asking around, and this is something other people have been noticing since Aether Revolt. A lot of people have been getting doubles and even triples of a common print run in their sealed pools. When you end up with three of some unplayable, this can be a real downer. On the other hand, sometimes you end up with doubles of good removal, or in my case, doubles of doubles. Getting two of the same rare is somewhat unlikely, but when it's removal, I won't complain. It was pretty clear to me from the get go that I was going to be red, and since it's sealed, I wasn't too worried about my lack of two drops since it was fairly easy to find removal when I needed it. To be honest, I usually spend more time dithering over colours, but just from looking at my piles, I knew I'd end up red/green. Green offered me two drops, explore, and a couple of big creatures to close out games. It's not often you open such a focused pool, but when you do, it makes decision making easy.

I made the decision to run seventeen land. Even with all of my explorers, I was running a definite midrange deck with a lot of expensive spells and effects. I knew I'd be perfectly happy getting to eight mana in a game. Eight mana would let me cast and buyback Repeating Barrage in the same turn, or activate Captivating Crew twice before combat.

As it turned out, Captivating Crew put in serious work during the opening tournament. In the very first game I was flooded out, and my opponent put a mark of the Vampire on a Wind Strider, which would have made short work of me had I not been able to drop and activate Captivating Crew in the same turn. I managed to stabilize the race, while still developing my board. In another instance, I dropped Captivating Crew on turn four, and I could see my opponent trying to decide what to do. He couldn't play just one creature, because he knew I'd steal it to hit him, but without removal in hand, his options were limited.

The one match I lost was partially due to mana. In one game I saw six forests before I saw my first mountain, but I also let that frustration get to me. In the next game, when I finally got my second mountain (with four forests in play), I used my Firecannon Blast on a flyer when I had my sideboarded Crushing Canopy in hand. Somehow, I blanked, and just plumb forgot I had it until I'd already cast the Firecannon Blast, a mistake which eventually cost me my recovery. All in all, I'm satisfied with 3-1, and it did put my in second place at the end of the tournament.

So, what am I building toward? Normally, this would be too early to say, but I know a few things. I'd like to lower my curve. As powerful as the deck is, it will end up losing to fast decks. I'd also like to pull in some red two drops. I want to move the Deck toward mono red with a very light green splash. At present, I have a single pirate synergy card, and only four pirates, so tribal is less important to me than my mana base. Tune in next week to see how I opened with my first added pack, and how the deck holds up for week 1! Thanks for joining me, -Step.


Check out our Podcast!
Recommanded Reading
Search By Tags
No tags yet.
Follow "THIS JUST IN"
  • Black YouTube Icon
  • Facebook Basic Black
  • Twitter Basic Black
  • Black Google+ Icon
bottom of page