I got together with my teammate this week to practice for the upcoming Team Sealed GP. The pool we opened is color sorted below. We jammed our decks agianst another teams practice pool about half a dozen times for each matchup. It was a great introduction to the format. The first thing I discovered is how important it is to build your three decks carefully. Each deck needs to be able to win, so building one insane deck is just out of the question. After getting a pretty good idea of what the best 3 combinations would be, we decided to just start jamming decks to see what we could improve. Going into this, I expected to have 2 aggro and 1 4-color-Green control deck. But we just didn't have the fixing, but we still ended up fitting the 2-aggro, 1-control pattern I expected.
White
Rootborn Defenses 2
Azorious Arrester
Knightly Valor
Avenging Arrow 3
Keening Apparition
Concordia Pegasus 2
Palisade Giant
Trostanis Judgement 3
Swift Justice 3
Eyes in the Skies
Fencing Ace
Blue
Inaction Injunction 4
Tower Drake 2
Mizzium Skin
Crosstown Courier 3
Isperias Skywatch
Cancel 2
Dispel 2
Runewing
Stealer of Secrets
Black
Cremate
Grave Betrayal
Catacomb Slug 3
Destroy the Evidence 2
Zanikev Locust
Tavern Swindler
Perilous Shadow 2
Assasin's Strike
Daggerdrome imp
Terrus Wurm
Launch party 4
Ogre jailbreakers
Grim Roustabout
Thrill-kill Assassin
Dead reveler.2
Deviant Glee
Red
Bellows Lizard 3
Batterhorn 2
Cobblebrute 2
Racecourse Fury
Survey the Wreckage
Tenement Crasher
Annihilating Fire
Traiterous Instinct
Dynacharge
Electrickery
Bloodfray Giant
Gore-house Chainwalker 2
Green
Slime Molding
Towering Indrik
Seek the Horizon 2
Centaur's Herald 2
Gatecreeper Vine
Golgari Decoy
Korozda Monitor
Giant Growth 2
Brushstrider
Gobbling Ooze
Axebane stag 2
Urban Burgeoning
Oakstreet Inkeeper
Archweaver
Stonefare Crocodile 2
Horncallers Chant 3
Drudge Beetle2
Multi-Color W/U
Lyev Skyknight
Archon of the Triumvirate
Search Warrant
Fall of the Gavel
Detention Sphere
Hybrid W/U
Judge's Familiar
Vassal Soul
Multi-Color U/R
Teleportal
Goblin Electromancer 2
Essence Backlash 2
Thoughtflare
Izzet Charm
Mercurial Chemister
Chemisters trick
Hybrid U/R
Frostburn Weird 2
Multi-Color G/W
Coursers Accord 2
Centaur Healer
Risen Sanctuary
Call of the Conclave
Common Bond
Hero's Reunion
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Hybrid G/W
Sundering Growth 4
Multi-Color R/B
Skull Rend 2
Rakdos Ringleader
Auger Spree 3
Spawn of Rix Maadi
Rakdos ragemutt
Dreadbore
Rix maadi guildmage
Hybrid R/B
Rakdos Shred-freak
Multi-Color G/B
Abrupt Decay
Grisly Salvage 2
Dreg Mangler
Treasure Find
Sluiceway scorpion
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Corpsejack Menace
Hybrid G/B
Slitherhead
Deathrite Shaman
Lands/Artifacts
Azorious Guildgate 3
Civic saber
Izzet Guildgate 2
Hallowed Fountain
Rakdos Guildgate
Blood Crypt
Codex Shreder
Tablet of the guilds 2
I'm interested to see how other people would build this pool, it might be a good exercise to do with your teammates, you could print this list, or make proxies, or however works best for your group. If you're going to do so, I would stop reading now, so our build doesn't influence your choices. Keep in mind, there are tons of ways to build this but over all, you want 3 decks that can win. I'm lucky enough to have a teammate who is better than me, but even so, we built this with only two players, and it's pretty overwhelming.
G/W Populate
Rootborn Defenses 2
Azorious Arrester
Keening Apparition
Trostanis Judgement 3
Eyes in the Skies
Coursers Accord 2
Centaur Healer
Risen Sanctuary
Call of the Conclave
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Slime Molding
Towering Indrik
Seek the Horizon 2
Centaur's Herald 2
Gatecreeper Vine
Golgari Decoy
Drudge Beetle2
Korozda Monitor
Transguild Promenade
9 Forest
7 Plains
R/B Aggro
Skull Rend
Rakdos Ringleader
Auger Spree 3
Spawn of Rix Maadi
Rakdos ragemutt
Dreadbore
Rix maadi guildmage
Rakdos Shred-freak
Bloodfray Giant
Gore-house Chainwalker 2
Zanikev Locust
Tavern Swindler
Assasin's Strike
Daggerdrome imp
Launch party 2
Grim Roustabout
Thrill-kill Assassin
Dead Reveler 2
Deviant Glee
Rakdos Guildgate
Blood Crypt
8 Mountain
7 Swamp
U/R/w Control
Frostburn Weird 2
Goblin Electromancer 2
Essence Backlash
Thoughtflare
Izzet Charm
Mercurial Chemister
Annihilating Fire
Electrickery
Inaction Injunction 4
Tower Drake 2
Mizzium Skin
Archon of the Triumvirate
Detention Sphere
Lyev Skynight
Runewing
Stealer of Secrets
Isperia's Skywatch
Azorious Guildgate 3
Izzet Guildgate 2
Hallowed Fountain
5 Islands
6 Mountain
What I Learned
We jammed these decks against another team's pool, and we found a bit of a Rock-Paper-Scissors. The other team had a similar base for their 3 decks. They had G/W/b aggro, R/B Aggro, and U/B Control.
The U/B Control decks stomped on the G/W decks and lost to the Rakdos Aggro. Given enough time, which the G/W decks will allow, the Izzet decks get to swing the game with large bombs and use countermagic and removal to stay ahead, but against rakdos it would take a good early draw to hold off the Rakdos beats including both blockers and removal. G/W Beat Rakdos Aggro pretty handily, 3/3 centaur tokens are a good trump to 2/2's and 3/2's and unleash preventing the ability to block once a mass of tokens appears usually ended the game. Our Rakdos deck fared a bit better against their G/W deck than theirs did against ours, mainly because our Rakdos deck had more 2-drops and they had less Centaur token producers. Their Izzet deck was insane featuring Niv Mizzet, Jace and Hypersonic dragon, but our Rakdos deck was still a slight favorite there, but our other two decks lost to it most of the time. Besides their Izzet deck, we were able to get a slight edge over their other decks, but overall it seems the matchups drive the outcome fairly significantly.
I hope these are helpful, and I'd love to see what others think about how we built this pool.
Thanks for reading!
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