MTG Salvation

Prerelease day is usually a day where I go at least 2-2 at my LGS, so I consider myself a decent deckbuilder. Today, however, sucked ass. Not even regular ass. I’m talking about putrid, barfed-up, roadkill ass. I got the worst promo to have at a limited event (Dispossess), the worst pool that I have ever seen, and a 0-3-1 record, the absolute *worst* record that I have ever done in any limited event ever. This is my pool:


Is this a horrible pool to build a deck with, or am I really misguided with regards to deckbuilding in Amonkhet limited? The amount of removal was rather low (with NO removal in white or green). The amount of playable creatures is pitiful in every single color except white. And the amount of creatures with 4 power was extremely pitiful, so Rhonas was not at his best here (He would probably be insulted to be paired with such a horrible pool as this). Oh, and to add insult to injury, at least 2 people in the group of 32 got invocations. No such luck here.

And this is what I built:


My reasoning was that since white was the only color with 8+ playables, I chose white as the first color. I chose black as the second color, as that color had a couple of removal spells (and one quality one) along with an okay amount of playables. I splashed for Rhonas because I needed a good creature to make up for the lack of excellent ones.

(Do not read if you are sensitive to personal rants)

So the big questions are:

1. What is the bare minimum of creatures that you can play in a sealed event such as this?
2. Were my changes to the maindeck after the first two matches correct? I wanted to focus more on the aggro theme, since that was the only real way I would be winning things.
3. And of course, is there a better setup from this horrible pool?

Thanks a lot to anyone who responds.

(1) Probably 14, unless you have a real strong control deck, which is hard to do in sealed.
(2) Personally, I wouldn't be running Forsake the Worldly or Painful Lesson main, so almost anything would be better.
(3) I think running black was just a mistake here. There's nothing exciting going on there, and you could still splash the removal spells if necessary. I think I'm just slamming G/W and don't look back. Yes, you don't have hard removal, which is where splashing Black could fit in, but you have some good Green tricks, and the creatures are so much better. You've got a reasonably solid:

1: CS
2: CCCCCC
3: CCSSSSSS
4: CCCC
5: C
6: C

Without splashing, and you could probably play the Final Reward on one Swamp. Maybe don't play the 1/1 Cat and play the second Black removal spell instead? Not saying this is any kind of guaranteed victory, but I think it's an improvement.

Agree with Axelrod completely, I would 100% run G/W with this pool, you have some very solid green creatures in there, and synchronized strike is an absolute powerhouse, i did some great things with that card today.

Thanks for the corrections guys. Yeah G/W in hindsight would be better. I guess I'm not very good at building pools at Amonkhet. Is it just me, or are there fewer playables at the common and uncommon level? I am not sure if insight is splashable. With that being said, What is a good number of removal spells to shoot for when looking for color combos in general?

Dude, your G pool was pretty decent, I agree with the other commenters. I think the commons and uncommons are quite good. I went 3-0 last night with a 2 rares and a bunch of aggressively costed dudes in BR. Your curve would've been just right, and you had at least 4-5 combat tricks which would've amounted to some pretty spicey combat sequences.

With three people saying G/W, I definitely screwed up here. I'm pretty sure that the G/W deck would NOT have gone 0-3-1, even with the zero removal. I thought the general rule for combat tricks is to make sure combat tricks and creatures follow a 4:1 ratio or less? Again, I was stupid and thought they aren't as good as black's removal spells (since I was under the impression that I would need them to address bombs like Glorybringer). Thanks for your answers.

Here's what I would've played:



Curve:
1 cmc= 2
2 cmc= 7
3 cmc= 9
4 cmc= 3
5 cmc= 1
6 cmc= 1
mana= 17 lands
total cards: 40

You may not have enough for a proper SB but there are options there to.

I think this is pretty solid. Interesting interactions: Using Rhonas to pump your dudes, thereby activating him. Exert combat sequences backed up by 5 Combat Tricks. Oketra's Monument is insane in this deck, cast dudes, make more dudes, go wide and watch opponents grimace. That's just the tip of ice berg, the deck has tons of play to it, this pushes your combat phase sequencing quite a bit.

Yeah, I saw your green and I was like wtf, why isn't this being played...Sorry, but Rhonas is a stupid bomb in limited. It wins games by itself hands down...Definitely GW. You don't need to care too much about removal when you are the aggro with such big beef in limited as long as you got some combat tricks to counter their removals.

I realize Rhonas is a bomb... that's why I splashed him. Is his power much lower when he's just a splash though? Thanks for the tips when being aggro.

GW gives you a pretty solid 18-card base. Rhonas is nuts, you're well set-up to abuse exert (Trial, SynchroStrike and Champion), and your curve has a lot of quality cards. You have a couple options from there:
- Settle in GW, which probably means another Spidery Grasp, plus a Binding Mummy, Initiate's Companion, Oketra's Monument and Dissenter's Deliverance. I'm not a big fan of monument, but with two Elite it's probably worth considering. You get consistency and a fairly decent card-quality, but with some duds and little in the way of disruption.
- Splash blue for Aven Wind Guide, Cartouche of Knowledge, Essence Scatter and a slightly greedy Lay Claim. It gives you some sketchy answers and even more evasion. I'm not quite feeling it though, and I don't think I'd want to commit fully for Vizier and Pull.
- Splash black for Gravedigger, Final Rest, Splendid Agony and Cartouche of Ambition. It's a decent splash, and your deck isn't any color intensive, but it's going to increase the variance of your deck.

Personally, I'd probably just go GW and try to overrun people. 2 Gust Walkers, 2 Tah-Crop Elite and a Winged Shepherd makes your evasion-game really solid, Champion of Rhonas works great with your expensive combat tricks, Rhonas is a god and Trial of Solidarity seems like a crazy card in your deck.

I agree with the others here. I'd have slammed GW, maybe splashing black if worried about removal, and stomped face.

The black creatures you played fill the curve but are low quality. They don't really help you win games. The best black cards in your pool are Final Reward, Splendid Agony, and Gravedigger. They're easily splashable and still relevant lategame, exactly what you want for a splash color. You have Evolving Wilds to fix mana. So if you want the removal against the nuts bombs, you can easily splash black.

Although you lack removal, Spidery Grasp and Synchronized Strike are quite powerful combat tricks in a beatdown deck. You can blast through double blocks, create a surprise blocker to ambush an attacker, or untap a tapped Exert creature precombat to surprise opponent with another attacker. They'll often let one of your creatures eat a fatty or bomb.

Rhonas is much stronger in a green deck than as a splash. You don't need 4-power creatures. You just need a bear and 2G open. With 4GG, Rhonas gets even nuttier. That's easier if green is a main color.

Unless you already have too many spells and too few creatures, Trial of Solidarity should be maindeck, especially since you have the Monument and the Cartouche making tokens already.