Time Spiral sealed deck

The first thing I would like to mention is how much of a powerhouse Errant Ephemeron is. When I looked over the spoiler I knew he was good. I knew he was really good actually. But until I saw him in action I just didn't realize how powerful getting a 4/4 flier in the midgame by paying 2 mana for him early really was. Add in the fact that he's a little bigger than most of the removal in this set and you've got yourself a winner.

Time Spiral sealed seems like a format where the card pools are deep and the tough decisions start with building your deck. In past formats a lot of the sealed decks have really built themselves. The tough decisions come in finding those last few playables or deciding whether you can stay in two colors or whether you need to branch into a third. Over the weekend I didn't have any problems finding playable cards. I knew red was in with Jaya Ballard, Sulphurous Blast, Lightning Axe, Firemaw Kavu, the Flowstone Spellshaper, Orcish Cannonade and Grapeshot for removal. I also had a couple Blazing Blade Askari and a Basalt Gargoyle. My white was out blue was thin. There was double Errant Ephemeron but not a whole lot after that. The green was pretty solid. Nothing spectacular but everything could hold its own in the red zone. Then I got to the black. More removal goodness with Strangling Soot, double Nightshade Assassin, and Faceless Butcher. A Twisted Abomination would help with mana and double as a good finisher if I needed it. So I looked at R/G with plenty of removal and some big guys or R/B killing everything. The R/B deck seemed like it didn't have enough guys who wanted to get in the red zone so I went to the R/G. I was about to start registering this deck when I decided I just couldn't leave that much removal out. So I dipped into blue for the Ephemerons as a finisher.

At the tournament I asked four different people whose opinions I respect what they would've done with my pool. The first guy said he thought I had built it right and the black was just too strong to leave in the board. The second guy said he would've splashed the green instead of the blue for green's beef. This is the only opinion I completely disagree with. The Ephemerons are just too good to go anywhere else for a splash just to attack with. The third opinion was that the Ephemerons and one Ophidian Eye (which was the only other blue card in the deck) weren't worth weakening the mana base. He would have stayed in just red and black. The fourth opinion was that red gave me enough removal and I should have gone with the green for a more balanced deck.

In retrospect, I think the way to go may have been the R/G. But it seems like I wasn't the only one who had problems deciding which was the best way to play his cards. One of the four guys above was actually switching back and forth between games between 2 different decks. No one I talked to was really sure they had built the best deck their cards had supplied them.

This tells me that most of the card pools are pretty deep. Deep card pools add another layer to a sealed deck tournament. I think that a lot of people are going to lose in upcoming PTQ's because they didn't build their deck right. So when you're out there in the trenches this PTQ season, put a little more time than usual into making sure you find the right mix of cards that will take you to Geneva.