We just finished week one of our Ixalan Sealed League at The Village Geek. Sealed League is a bit different from other sealed format tournaments. Sealed League lets each player begin with 3 packs instead of 6 and you are expected to build a 30 card deck instead of the normal 40. It can be a bit challenging to open up your 3 packs week one and try to figure out how to make a coherent deck. Let’s cover a few tips that I hope can help anyone jumping in to their first sealed league.
- Your curve is what will matter the most. Open your cards and sort them all by their color and mana cost. Then look at what you have laid out and figure out which color combinations will give you the best overall mana curve. Curving out against your opponent is one of the best ways to get some easy wins during week one when everyone’s decks are relatively weak.
- You will probably have to play a third color. You are opening 45 cards when you start instead of the 90 you would in a normal sealed tournament. You are less likely to open enough playable cards in just two colors so you will likely need to splash a third color. Try not to splash cards that have double or more color pips in their mana cost. Just find something in a third color a bit higher up your curve that will fill it out nicely. Also check to see if you opened any mana fixing that can help with your third color.
- Play lots of games and pick up those losses early. You get to buy a pack and add it to your pool after every three losses.
The more cards you open the stronger your pool and deck can become. Sure, losing sucks, but just get it out of the way and hope you open some great cards to strengthen your deck for future matches. - Just have fun. At the end of the day you are getting to play games of Magic which is one of the best games ever. Just play some games and have some fun. That’s what playing Magic is all about.
Have any other useful tips? Leave them in the comments.
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