This past saturday, I played in one of the first Sealed Deck Magic: The Gathering tournaments I've played in for many years. The event was the Shards of Alara release party - one of the first chances to play with the new cards.

Let me first say, right up until about 20 minutes before the tournament began, I wasn't sure I was going to play. I wasn't feeling real hot, and had considered skipping the tournament altogether. Nevertheless, I decided to go anyway, as I had missed the last 5 or 6 tournaments in which I had planned to play, so I didn't want to miss this one too.

After receiving my shiny promo Ajani Vengeant, I went and sat in the back of my local game store and waited for the tournament to begin. And I waited. And waited. Finally, 30 minutes after the tournament was supposed to have started, the Head Judge stood up and 'reminded' us of the special rules for Shards of Alara sealed - namely, that your deck could only include cards from one shard's colors. I wasn't aware of this rule before the announcement, and from the looks on faces around the room, I wasn't the only person for whom this was new information. Soon after, packs were distributed and I started going through my stuff.

I ended up pulling several nifty rares... Mycoloth, Broodmate Dragon, and Battlegrace Angel to name a few. I was very excited to use the Broodmate Dragon along with the Blightning I pulled in the same pack, but unfortunately my base in black was really weak. As I sorted through my playable cards, I found that basic blue and black were both pretty bad, and that red was full of reasonable removal but not much else. White and green were both REALLY solid, and they supported my Battlegrace Angel and Mycoloth really well. As for the multicolored cards, I was fortunate that my Bant (green, white, blue) stuff was super solid, and I even managed to pull two Bant Panoramas. After not much debate, I chose Bant as my shard, and started building.

My deck ended up looking like this:

Exalted Bant (41)

Creatures (15)
2 Waveskimmer Aven
2 Rhox Charger
1 Rhox War Monk
2 Sigiled Paladin
1 Wild Nacatl
2 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Druid of the Anima
1 Deft Duelist
1 Court Archers
1 Mycoloth
1 Battlegrace Angel

Spells (8)
1 Soul's Might
1 Resounding Silence
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Resounding Roar
1 Kiss of the Amesha
2 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Bant Charm

Lands (18)
7 Plains
6 Forest
3 Island
2 Bant Panorama

My first match, game 1 was a blowout. I had a plains, forest, and island in my opening hand, along with a Rhox War Monk and Wild Nacatl. My opponent mulliganed down to 4 before he saw a land, and he was on the play. Needless to say, he scooped on turn 6 or so, and we went to game 2. Game 2 was much better for him - he drew his threats, but I consistently had answers. He was playing Jund, and just went down fast.

Record 1-0

Round 2, game 1, was another case of mana-hosing for a different opponent. This guy mulliganed to 6 with no lands, and I took the opportunity to mulligan a high-cost hand to 6 on the draw. My 6 card hand was beautiful, and I played a Rhox Charger turn 4 and Battlegrace Angel turn 5, with 2 other exalted creatures in play. Turn 5 the Charger went swinging in as a 6/6 Lifelink Trampler, and my opponent scooped.

Game 2 was over before it started, I played a land and a creature every turn through turn 4 and my opponent just gave up.

Record 2-0

Round 3 was by far the most exciting of the night for me. I pulled an early game 1 win - about 5 minutes into the round. Game 2 my opponent played a turn 5 Realm Razer using 2 mana elves, and he easily trounced me with his fatties vs the 1-drops I managed to get out the next few turns.

Game 3 went long, I played a turn 7 Battlegrace Angel and managed to regain some of the life I had lost to his early hitters, then drew Resounding Silence and cycled it to stop 2 of his attackers. Next turn he capsuled my Angel, but couldn't play another threat. I still had both of my walls in play, and on my next turn topdecked Mycoloth. I got him into play, devouring both walls, and started generating saplings on the following turn. Just for style points, before I beat him down on the penultimate turn of the game, I played Soul's Might on the Mycoloth, bringing him up to 12 +1/+1 counters. :)

Record 3-0

Round 4, My opponent and I were the only undefeated players left, so we drew and both went to the top 8.

Record 3-0-1

My first top 8 opponent went down fast in game 1 to a Battlegrace Angel. Game 2, I kept a mana-filled hand containing the Angel as well, hoping to draw some early threats and win the same way I won game 1, but my first 4 draws were land, and that was all my opponent needed to take the game 2 win.

Game 3 was disappointing, because the cards just didn't materialize the way they had been all night. By and large I had far fewer issues with mana than any of my opponents - I always had exactly what I needed, and when I needed it. Game 3 was exactly the opposite, as I consistently drew land in the mid-game, and the small creatures I played were just not enough to hold back his onslaught. He won the game, and when I checked the top card of my deck - who is staring back at me but Battlegrace Angel. Boy, she would have been useful 4 turns before...

Final Record 3-1-1

I won a single Alara booster pack for making it to the top 8, and pulled a Salvage Titan from that pack. I also had a ton of fun, and though the tournament ended up going far longer than I expected, I ended up getting home a little before 11.

My overall impression of the Shards environment is that your deck is made or broken by your ability to handle your manabase. I chose very early to focus on just 2 of my 3 colors, using my 3rd color only on the gold stuff. Had I pulled bombs in 3 colors that might have changed my tune, but as it was, I think I really hit the nail on the head when it came to my pool's best deck.

One aside - the Dispeller's Capsules were rarely a completely dead draw, and ended up being pretty important in several games. If I could do it over again, the one thing I would change would be the decision to maindeck both of them...I think 1 in the maindeck would have been fine, and the other in the board could have helped had I hit a heavy esper deck. For the record, I don't think a single Esper deck made top 8, and I was the only Bant deck I saw all night. Jund and Naya were VERY popular.