Top cards of the Visions Sealed/Booster Draft Contest!
Last week the visitors of the Dojo were asked what the five best cards in each color were for the Visions set, in the Sealed/Booster Draft format. Listed below are the top draft cards in each color, sorted by rarity and color.
BLACK: Crypt Rats Card Advantage wins games, and sealed is creature intensive. It's like a black Savage Twister. (Rats of God). Helps in later games if you play one in an earlier game as the opponent is afraid to put too many creatures in play while you have freedom. (critremoval/cardadv, global, dd all-in-one). *COMMON* Fallen Askari Cheap flanker, good for attacking. Best 2nd turn creature. *COMMON* Coercion Awesome hand destruction in limited format. Cheaper than your opponent's fatties, and easy to cast. Coercion your torch! Rip that clutch but situation specific spell out of the opponents hand AND get a look at his other cards. Great early card for removing the biggest threat, or taking the Trick card, Like A ray, torch or rock slide. *COMMON* Wake of Vultures 3/1 flying says it all, with so little direct damage/removal, it's 1 toughness is irrelevant. Nice in combo with Roaches. *COMMON* Infernal Harvest Although the drawback is clear, Harvest can gain you cards (4-6 swamps = 4-6 damage to divide among your choosing). Removal is sparse in this environment. Creature sweeper. *COMMON* Tar Pit Warrior Cheap fattie. Minor drawback, as most targetted effects are creature kill anyways. *COMMON* Nekrataal Gotta love it - good 2/1 creature and terror built in. *UNCOMMON* Necromancy Either get your best creature or his best creature back after they get killed off. Being able to play it as an instant provides nifty tactical advantage as well. *UNCOMMON* Brood Of Cockroaches Very hard to get rid of. Endlessly hold off a big creature for 1 life per turn. *UNCOMMON* Vampiric Tutor Library search for B, useful for getting proper card in situation. The second best card to draw in your deck. *RARE* Necrosavant Just keeps coming back. Should be ample sacrifice fodder in this environment. The ultimate re-usable fattie. *RARE* Kaervek's Spite Killing Blow - pulls off the last few points for you! *RARE*
BLUE: Breezekeeper Nothing special, just a 4/4 flyer that's easy to cast. Big Flyers are so hard to handle in sealed deck that the phasing drawback isn't that much of a drawback. *COMMON* Man 'o war The first of the two big unsummoners in blue. Sets you opp back a round and clears the way for an attack. The blue torch. Great turn economy; it's also card advantage if it removes a local enchantment (be it a Pacifism on your own creature or a booster on your opponent's). *COMMON* Undo This can easily gain you card advantage, there are plenty of good creature enchantments so you always find that at LEAST you are going 1 for 1... more importantly, a well timed undo forces an opponent to block with his inferior creatures or take damage... either way , you come out ahead. *COMMON* Knights of the Mist In Visions, he's just ok, since there are only 3 other knights. Now in Visions/Mirage/weatherlight, he's your own personal nekrataal but better and cheaper. *COMMON* Impulse Deck cycling is crucial in sealed/draft. Good early, good late. Easy to cast and doesn't give up card advantage. If you play second (which is the popular choice in sealed deck), use a 40 card deck and cast this on the 2nd turn you have a better than 13% chance of pulling that clutch spell. If not, you are 4 turns closer to drawing it. Helps fight mana screw. *COMMON* Cloud Elemental Flying Beatdown. Good 3rd turn creature. *COMMON* Waterspout Djinn 4/4 flyer, 4 mana... nough said. Only fools play him out on the 4th turn if their deck requires more than 4 lands to play well, so, they only reason he has a drawback is if, well, you are a fool. *UNCOMMON* Rainbow Efreet Flier, phases at will, reasonable cost... *UNCOMMON* Ovinomancer Bye-bye fattie, hello there sheep. Reusable creature control is strong. Returning 3 lands isnšt that bad when youšre trying to break a creature stalemate. *UNCOMMON* Dream Tides Creature control, shuts down Green and helps prevent weenie-beatdowns *UNCOMMON* Desertion Only counterspell in Visions. Creatures are key in Sealed/Draft. Countering an opponents and gaining control of it is a game swinging move. *RARE*
GREEN: RiverBoa Because of few anti-regeneration spells in draft, the River boa is almost invincible as long as you have the mana. *COMMON* Qurion Ranger Untap a suprise blocker or attack without fear of the counterattack. Granger a 2/2. Escape mana screw. This guy does it all. One of the few 1/1's worth using. *COMMON* Bull Elephant Cheap 4/4 with small drawback. Easy G3 casting cost for multicolor. *COMMON* Warthog Swampwalk extremely useful on a 3-power creature. GG in casting cost makes it harder to cast, but worth it. *COMMON* Elven Cache Good 1 for 1 card, spell. Can get necessary card back if destroyed. Now you're playing with 2 rockslides... 2 undo's, 2 of my best creatures. *COMMON* Panther Warriors Fairly big creature, 6 damage for 5 mana, and only 1 colored. Can't block flankers and live, though. Just attack with it, baby. *COMMON* Giant Caterpillar 3/3 for 4 mana is not that great, but the ability means that it basically cannot be the target of spells or effects unless you so wish it. And flyers are a rare commodity in Sealed/Visions. *COMMON* Emerald Charm Very versatile, easily the most useful of the charms, the ability to unblock creatures is huge. The closest thing Green has to Creature removal. Great Suprise Value and can also be used to take care of a gossamer chains. *COMMON* Creeping Mold Good all around destruction, best enchantment destruction card in Visions. *UNCOMMON* Stampeding Wildebeests Not much that can stop a 5/4 trampler. The unsummon upkeep can get rid of Pacifisms/Thirsts/Betrayal and is managable in sealed envirnment. *UNCOMMON* Elephant Grass Stops black for 5+ rounds. Just about stops anything else for 5+ rounds too. Perfect for anytime in the game. Early game you can use it to wait for your mana to build without worrying about attacks. Mid-Game you can attack with your big creatures and only leave a few creatures for defense. End-Game you can sit back and wait for that red X spell or wait for the mana to cast the X spell and finish your opponent. *UNCOMMON* Quirion Druid Tons of flak critters - Talk about card advantage. *RARE* City of Solitude No rockslide, no feral instict or any creature enhancements on my turn, no healing, no regen, and no quicksand. *RARE* Rowen This card can win you the game on it's own if you manage to pull it out quickly due to the card and drawing advantage it provides (no wasted draw). With a sealed deck of almost 1/2 mana, this is like gain an extra card every turn. Ouch. *RARE*
RED: Rock Slide Only anti-creature card for red that is in form of direct damage. Limited to ground-pounding creatures, but RX cost is easy to pay. Good many to one card advantage. Worth putting 2 mountains in your sealed deck even if this is the only red spell in it. *COMMON* Fireblast Awesome direct damage, great card to accumulate in hand till end game. It's hard to splash red and play this but few sealed decks that can include 3-4 mountains won't play this. *COMMON* Suq'ata Lancer If played at right time, Suq'ata Lancer is like a 2 damage fireball. If the opponent cannot destroy it the next turn, you also get a free 2/2 flanker. Flankers in general are hard to handle in sealed and this ties with Fallen Askari as the fastest 2 power flanker (both can attack on turn 3). But, unlike the Askari, the lancer can block flankers too! *COMMON* Keeper of Kookus Early in the game it's a 1/1 for one mana. Later on, it'll block the biggest red creature over and over again. *COMMON* Hulking Cyclops 5/5 for 5 mana with a negligable drawback. Let's face it, how often do you keep your 5/5 back to block anyways?). *UNCOMMON* Viashino Sandstalker Good unaffected by summoning sickness creature for red. Immune to fireball disintegrate and other similar spells. If you can afford a RR spell, then this gives you a decent chance for a quick beatdown win. If you don't draw it early, the worst case will find it killing off a 2 power blocker. *UNCOMMON* Spitting Drake A red flyer? Gotta get it! *UNCOMMON* Relentless Assault Can deliver the killing blow, this card is so broken in sealed with a few creatures to attack... *RARE* Ogre Enforcer Immune to weenies and creature+direct damage combos More offensive than defensive, but tough to stop. *RARE* Bogardan Phoenix Good flier that must be killed twice! *RARE*
WHITE: Gossamer Chains Creature Control. Stops fliers and regenerators. Mana is usually more plentiful in sealed and there is little enchantment destruction. *COMMON* Knight of Valor Superflanker! He gets the nod over the Crusader Because he is Common, and only a single W mana to cast. *COMMON* Remedy It's like a Wrath of God for 2 mana. And it's played during DAMAGE PREVENTION so your opponent can't surprise you with a Giant Growth in response to this. *COMMON* Freewind Falcon Quick flyer that canšt be toasted. *COMMON* Sun Clasp Not much can stop your clasped Knight of Valor. Sun Clasp your Nekrataal and when you cant get through or can't deal with a creature, pop it back to your hand. That ability makes it so that if you play right (leave a white open at all times) you should never lose card advantage like you do so often with creature enchantments. *COMMON* Parapet Makes all those little white flankers a lot harder to deal with. Incredible in sealed, pumping all of your creatures in toughness and also having a marvelous surprising effect. *COMMON* Infantry Veteran Right on the mana curve, 1/1 for 1, and his special ability can mean your creatures always get through on offense. *COMMON* Honorable Passage Many sealed games are decided by a red x spell, can also save a creature. The fact that red is the most comon form of creature removal is a bonus. Most decks play red for burn, giving you 2/1 advantage (tap X opps lands to do him X-1 points of damage). Works well even if your opp is not playing red. Cast it in the first game, your opponent has something to think about for the rest of the match. *UNCOMMON* Miraculous Recovery Just broken. Can't be disenchanted, gives a +1/+1 boost, and an instant to boot. *UNCOMMON* Longbow Archer Flyers are essential, mostly to block other flyers. For 2 mana this guy is first strike 2/2 flyer. Ouch. *UNCOMMON* Zhalfirin Crusader Cheap flanker with powerful redirecting ability. If you get this one you can be happy, because with a bit of white mana it's almost insane what you can do with it as a blocker or attacker and it even has flanking. *RARE* Archangel Big white flyer. Hard to destroy, does not tap. Game Ender. *RARE* Retribution of the meek Mass card control, excellent! Slow down that big green creature assault. *RARE*
ARTIFACTS and LAND: SNAKE BASKET Dragon Mask Magma mine Triangle of War Undiscovered Paradise: Great to have in 3 color decks. Quicksand