Playing Magic: The Gathering over the course of the Grand Meetup was a lot of fun. While I had a losing record (5-8,) I was second in number-of-games-played, which was my true objective. We had 31 players with a round robin setup: everyone was to try and play everyone else once, but we all knew we wouldn’t get all the games in. Each match was ‘best of two out of three games.’ We were playing sealed decks with booster packs from Magic Origins, Dragons of Tarkir, Khans of Tarkir, and Fate Reforged.
I did some research on how to build a deck in a tournament like this, and I ended up only adjusting my initial build once, to add one counter spell which I never got a chance to cast. Apparently in most tournaments you have to mantain the same build for all matches, but we allowed players to change decks completely between matches since it spanned the course of a week and was only for fun anyway.
My best cards were a pair of dragons that both required blue and black mana. I also felt okay on my blue/black cards to provide a solid opening, but I worried about how well they’d hold up in the middle. Since no other color seemed to scream a plan at me I decided to go forward with blue/black and find ways to win late with my dragons and a couple other big creatures.
You can skip to the deck list by clicking this link.
Having low-cost, deathtouch creatures helped my early drops, but I relied heavily on creature removal to make it through the middle game. When I was lucky enough to get the Blood Chinned Rager along with multiple other warrior creatures (i.e., Unyielding Krumar, Hand of Silumgar, Alesha’s Vanguard) the requirement of two creatures to block made for a strong attack that almost always secured a win later on. But in sealed deck, one really shouldn’t rely on combos. So I added that splash of white to bring back some life. I considered removing the War Behomoth because I almost always used the 2/2 token (without morphing) as a blocker instead of using it for the big creature it can be. The Skaab Goliath and my two dragons were way better at that.
The Necromaster Dragon ended up being my best win condition. Creating 2/2 tokens turn after turn adds salt to the wound of a tough flyer and it was usually enough to turn an equal position into a winning position. Problems with this plan were against opponents playing with aggressive speed. If I was already being attacked by five or six creatures, one 4/4 flyer isn’t enough to turn the game around to my favor. But if I could steadily build as I liked, this creature became the cornerstone of my turn. Silumgar, the Drifting Death can fill the same role because he’s so tough to kill, but I just didn’t draw him as often.
If I wanted to use this deck as the basis of construction play, I wouldn’t need to adjust it much. I’d just add land appropriate to a 60-card deck and beef up the amount of black 3-drop and 4-drop creatures. The result would still be a deck that either annoys for several turns and wins late, or loses quickly due to slower draw against aggro.
Deck List with Links
- Silumgar, the Drifting Death
- Necromaster Dragon
- Skaab Goliath
- Treasure Cruise
- Aven Surveyor
- Bone to Ash
- Claustrophobia
- Crippling Chill
- Glint
- Frost Walker
- Unholy Hunger
- Alesha’s Vanguard
- Unyielding Krumar
- Flatten
- Kheru Bloodsucker
- Debilitating Injury
- Hand of Silumgar
- Blood-Chin Rager
- Typhoid Rats
- Touch of Moonglove
- War Behemoth
- Healing Hands
- Arashin Cleric
- 2x Tranquil Cove
- 7x Island
- 9x Swamp
Alex Gustafson 
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