This weekend brings us another Prerelease. As I’ve done for the last few sets today I’m going to do a Theros Prerelease Primer. We will look at some general strategies for Sealed as well as how it pertains to the Theros specifically. Then we will take a brief look at the mechanics as they pertain to Sealed play. At the end, we will evaluate the commons of each color and see look at my top 5 for each.

Sealed Deck

For those of you who have attended a Prerelease or Sealed deck event in the past and are familiar with the general strategies and ideas involved you can skip down to section labeled Mechanics for specific Theros information. Just remember that for the Prerelease only, you will receive a seeded booster containing mostly cards of your color, in addition to 5 normal Theros boosters.

For those unfamiliar with Prereleases or Sealed deck play, you will not be bringing your own deck to this event. Instead, you will be given 6 booster packs and will have to construct a 40-card minimum deck out of the boosters that you open plus any number of basic lands that will be provided. For the Prerelease only, you will choose one of the 5 colors of Magic when you register and one of the packs you receive will be a special booster containing mostly cards of your color, including a Prerelease Promo you will be able to use as well. We will look a little more at these Promos down below.

Even though your deck has a 40-card minimum, it is a good idea to keep to this. The more cards you put in your deck, the less likely you are to draw your most powerful cards. Remember that every card that is not in your main deck is considered to be your sideboard, so you can bring those other cards in certain matches where they will be useful.

You will typically want to be around 23 spells and 17 lands. These numbers are not set in stone of course, but this is the best place to start. If you build an aggressive deck, with mostly cheap spells, then you may be able to go down to 16 lands. On the other hand, if you build a slower deck that has a lot of expensive, powerful cards, you may want to consider going up to 18 lands to make sure you have enough mana to cast those powerful spells.

Since you are receiving a special booster containing mostly cards of one color, it is very possible your deck will be only one color. However, you may pull powerful cards in another color that you want to play as well, so you will need to know how many of each basic land to play. One quick way to do this is the count up the mana symbols of each color in the costs of your spells and use this as a ration for determining how many of each land to play.

For example: Your deck has 24 red mana symbols in the costs and 8 green symbols. In this case, you would want to have 3 Mountains for every Forest.

Chances are, the math won’t work out quite that evenly. If you have an extra land slot you don’t know what to do with, it’s usually best to slant toward the color that has either the cheapest spells, so you can draw it early in the game, or the color with the most double mana spells, so you make sure to draw enough of those lands to cast those spells.

You also want to make sure your deck contains plenty of creatures. Creatures are the most important cards in Sealed deck. Out of the 23 spells you are playing, you probably want at least 14-15 of them to be creatures. This way, you ensure that you have plenty of creatures to play. You also want a range of costs on those creatures. Then you will be able to play creatures at all points of the game. Remember, that any spell that makes a token creature can be counted as a creature in most cases too.

This was just a few general pointers for building your deck at the Prelease. Now, we will look at some information specific to Theros and how it will affect your deck building and game play.

Mechanics

I wrote an in depth article about the Mechanics of Theros already. You can find that here. Today, we are going to take a brief look at them again specifically as it pertains to Sealed play at the Prerelease.

Bestow

Bestow is a great mechanic for Sealed deck play. Sealed usually comes down to creature combat and games can go longer. Bestow allows you to buff one of your creatures first, and then get a second creature out of the deal if your opponent is able to deal with the first. This means your opponent will have to use more removal spells to deal with your creatures. Don’t be afraid to play your bestow creatures as actual creatures though in the early game, especially if you are already applying pressure to your opponent. These creatures are great, because they give you options, so be sure to evaluate which option is better at the time.

Monstrous

This is another great ability for Sealed deck play for similar reasons to bestow. Games will typically go longer and there will be turns when you have a lot of mana in play and nothing to cast. Monstrous creatures give you something to do with that extra mana, making a creature bigger and a lot of times, you will even get a spell-like effect as well.

Remember, Monstrous can be used at instant speed. Activating the ability at the end of your opponent’s turn allows you to save mana for other combat tricks or abilities you might have. Also, be careful not to waste your time using the Monstrous ability if you think your opponent might kill it in response. If you do, the mana will be wasted and you won’t even get the Monstrous triggered ability. It’s important to keep these ideas in mind when deciding when to use Monstrous.

Also, I can’t wait to say “Magic Wand, make my monster GROW!” at the Prerelease. Bonus points if you get the reference.

Heroic

Heroic is an interesting mechanic in Sealed deck. It rewards you for playing combat tricks which is a good way to make sure your creatures come out ahead in combat. The trick is to make sure you aren’t playing too many combat tricks to trigger your heroic and end up not playing enough creatures. Fortunately, some of the combat tricks in Theros target multiple creatures allowing you to get multiple triggers without having to devote too many slots to tricks.

Heroic also plays well with Bestow. Auras do target the creatures you cast them on, so they will trigger Heroic abilities. This allows you to have additional ways to trigger heroic without losing too many of the slots in your deck to non-creature cards.

Devotion

Devotion is an interesting mechanic that will affect how you build your deck. At the Prerelease you will have the special pack of your color so it will be easier to build a mono-color deck to take advantage of your devotion cards. Just remember if you decided to add a second color to your deck that it will affect your cards that care about devotion.

Scry

Scry is just a good mechanic all around and that doesn’t change for Sealed deck. This is a great mechanic that will allow you to filter through your deck for the specific cards that you need. Having a lot of Scry cards can allow you to be a little more flexible in your deck construction because you will have an easier time finding the cards you need when you need them.

Promos

Now we are going to take a look at the Prerelease Promos you will get and some strategies around them. It’s going to be a very rare situation where you don’t play your promo in your deck.

White – Celestial Archon

This guy is really strong for Sealed. You get a 4/4 body with flying and first strike for 5 mana. This is already enough for me to put him in my deck and be very happy every time I cast him. The fact that he has Bestow is just icing on the cake.

In the late game, you can Bestow him on a creature making that creature a threat your opponent has to deal with immediately. And then, when they do, you get the Archon in creature form meaning they now have another threat they have to deal with. I would look to Bestow this guy when possible. However, don’t hesitate to play him as a creature on turn 5 if you need to stop your opponent’s attacks or if you have been pressuring your opponent and looking to close the game quickly.

Blue – Shipbreaker Kraken

This guy is huge. A 6/6 for 6 mana is going to have an impact on the board no matter what. Your opponent is not going to want to swing into that. They will want to find removal pretty quickly to deal with this guy.

Once you activate the monstrous ability your opponent is going to be hard pressed to beat you. If they don’t have five creatures out at the time, they will suddenly find themselves without blockers for your 10/10 creature, plus whatever else you might have in play. There’s a good chance you are just going to win the game right there.

Playing Blue at the Prerelease may be one of the times you want to look at playing an extra land. The monstrous ability on this guy is so good you will want to use whenever you can. This means you will want to make sure you have 8 mana to do so.

Black – Abhorrent Overlord

This guy is going to put games away quickly when he resolves. A 6/6 flier is very difficult to deal with, especially one that supplies his own squadron of attacker as well. You will want to make sure your deck is mostly black to take full advantage of his ability. Considering you will be getting a pack with mostly black cards in it, don’t be surprised if you find yourself playing mono-black. This guy is worth it. Remember that he does produce two tokens on his own and chances are the game won’t last long enough for his drawback to really matter.

This guy might also make you want to play an extra land, so you can make sure you hit 7 mana consistently.

Red – Ember Swallower

This is the cheapest of the Promos, but he is no less powerful. A 4/5 for 4 mana is already a great deal allowing you to be very aggressive, something red naturally wants to do anyway. Plus, he gives you a safety net against mana flood. If you drawing too many lands, just activate his Monstrous ability and set your opponent back a few lands, while you set yourself back to about the mana range you want to be on. Then ask your opponent how he is going to deal with your 7/8 friend.

Green – Anthousa, Setessan Hero

This is the only promo that is Legendary. However, because of the new Legend rule this is probably not going to come up. Even if you play another green player, you can both have her in play with no worries. You would only have an issue if you pull a second copy in one of your other packs and draw it while the first copy is still in play. Like I said, it’s probably not going to happen.

A 4/5 for 5 mana is not typically that great for Green these days. However, her ability allows you to sneak in lots of extra damage against an opponent with few blockers. You will want to look for good pump spells and Bestow creatures to go in your deck to make sure you can trigger her ability when you need to. You do have to be careful with this ability though. There is always a risk when animating your lands that can be much more easily destroyed at the point. I certainly wouldn’t do it if I needed the mana in later turns and there was potential my opponent could destroy the animated land.

Commons

Now we will take a general look at the commons available in each color, because our decks will mostly be made up of commons. This will be useful in two ways. It will let you know what to look for when building your deck. However, it will also let you know what to watch for from opponents who are playing that color. I will also provide you my top 5 picks for commons in each color. Also, remember, these picks are skewed based on the setup of the Prerelease and do not necessarily reflect on general Sealed play.

White

White has a set of aggressive common creatures as well as a set of defensive common creatures. This gives you a lot of flexibility when building your deck. Your promo also fits into both of these strategies very nicely, allowing you to close out an aggressive plan quickly, or playing the long game allowing you to use the Bestow for extra value. You also get a decent amount of removal at common, but it is all situational. Here are my picks for top 5 commons in white.

5. Gods Willing

This is an excellent trick to have. It gives you many options including saving a creature from a removal spell, making a favorable block in combat, or even making a creature unblockable for lethal damage. The fact that it also lets you Scry 1 as well gives it an excellent boost. Don’t be afraid to use this card early if you need to hit a land drop or need to find a removal spell.

4. Cavalry Pegasus

A 1/1 flying creature for 2 is decent. What makes this guy shine is that he gives all of your humans flying as well. This makes it very difficult for a ground based opponent to start your attacks. If you have a few of these guys, look to play your Humans over other creatures, if the decisions are close.

3. Observant Alseid

This card functions like a smaller version of your promo, giving you the option to play it early if you need aggression or a blocker. However, holding this guy back and putting him on a flying creature is going to give you incredible value. This card is also a great Heroic enabler.

2. Divine Verdict

This is white’s best common removal spell, because the restriction is easy to overcome. It will work on any of the opposing creatures as long as you can get them to attack or block. Also, watch out for white players who swing a small attack into an oversized blocker if they have 4 mana open. Chances are, they are looking to Verdict your guy.

1. Wingsteed Rider

This guy seems very good in limited. A 2/2 flier for 3 mana is already a decent rate for a creature. The fact that you can easily make him bigger makes him even better. He is the perfect target for the Observant Alseid giving you a build your own Serra Angel. Also, the double white in his cost would normally seem like a drawback, but it is actually useful here for increasing your devotion count.

Blue

As is normal for Blue, the commons will play into a longer game plan. This will allow you to keep your opponent’s aggression at bay and play a tempo game until you can take control of the game. This is especially important since your promo wants to play the long game anyway. Here are my picks for top 5 blue commons.

5. Nimbus Naiad

As with the Alseid in white, this is a great value creature. It allows you to play early as a decent blocker or wait and make an even better blocker (or attacker). The reason this is not rated as high as the Alseid is that blue does not have as many Heroic creatures to make use of the Aura targeting.

4. Prescient Chimera

This is a decent creature, with an ability that gets really good in the late game. Casting instants and sorceries is really what blue wants to be doing to deal with their opponents and getting to Scry every time you do that allows you to really advance your game. It will help smooth out your draws in the end game and stay ahead of your opponent.

3. Voyage’s End

This is a great card at keeping your opponent’s off balance. It allows you to keep aggressive creatures off the board in the early game. It also allows you a small reprieve if your opponent has a late game bomb. The fact that you get to Scry on top of that really makes this a fantastic card.

2. Breaching Hippocamp

First of all, what is a Simic creature doing on Theros? Horse fish? Really? Joking, aside, this guy is really good. A surprise 3/2 blocker that also untaps another blocker is going to put a damper on many combat steps. Players will need to be careful attacking into 4 open blue mana. This has been true for M14 limited so it should carry over easily.

1. Griptide

An instant speed removal spell that has the ability to Time Walk my opponent is definitely something I’m interested in playing. It is a little costly, but it is also very powerful especially in response to a Monstrous activation or your opponent trying to Enchant a creature.

Black

The commons in black are very interesting. Very few of the common creatures look that appealing to me, but it has quite a bit of good removal. If you are playing Black you will probably want to build a slower deck focus on keeping your opponent’s creatures off the table as you build up to a couple of big finishers including your Promo. These are my top 5 picks for Black commons.

5. Gray Merchant of Asphodel

This guy starts out decent and can get ridiculous. He will automatically drain for 2 with his ability. The fact that he can easily drain for 5 or 6 puts him over the top. He is a great way to make a comeback against an aggressive deck.

4. Cavern Lampad

Yet again, the cycle of Nymphs makes my top 5 list. This one would be higher if it was cheaper. However, I can understand why this one costs more. Accursed Spirit is a huge card in M14 limited, and this card can turn any of your creatures into a bigger Accursed Spirit and then leave you with a slightly smaller one if they kill the original.

3. Read the Bones

This is a great card for keeping you stocked up on removal spells. The two life can hurt at times, but the fact that you Scry 2 before drawing makes this card very good at getting you exactly what you need at the time.

2. Pharika’s Curse

I mentioned that Black has excellent removal at common and this is a shining example of it. Killing an early aggressive creature and gaining 2 life in the process is a great way to stay alive while you develop your own board. It’s possible this might actually be #1, but it is limited by the size of creatures it can kill.

1. Lash of the Whip

And here we see another great example of the black removal suite. -4/-4 is a lot and will kill most of the creatures in the format. It is a bit pricy but definitely worth it. It even has the ability to get around Regeneration and Indestructible. Unfortunately none of the Gods in the set are small enough to die to this.

Red

Red has a very aggressive set of commons in this set. They are either creatures that want to be attacking, spells that help your creatures attack, or burn spells. This all plays nicely with the fact that they have an aggressive promo that will keep land counts in play very low. Here are my top 5 commons in Red.

5. Ill-Tempered Cyclops

Even if this guy had no game text, I would still play him most of the time in limited. The fact the has trample and can become a 6/6 makes it even better.

4. Spearpoint Oread

The red Nymph makes my top 5 list as well. This is one that might give you a hard choice of when to play. A 2/2 with first strike will be very useful at stopping your opponent. Bestow on to a large creature and you have something your opponent isn’t going to want any part of.

3. Rage of Purphoros

4 points of damage that prevents regeneration is good. Scry 1 is better. The fact that this is a sorcery and cannot hit players are the only issues I have with it. It is still worth playing though.

2. Minotaur Skullcleaver

This guy hits for 4 damage on turn 3. That’s really good. He may get outclassed quickly, but he hits hard enough and fast enough that it may not matter.

1. Lightning Strike

It’s Searing Spear. 3 damage at instant speed for 2 mana is good. This card should always been in your deck if you are red.

Green

Green has a pretty good set of commons in this set, with a good mix of large and small creatures as well as some good combat tricks. Not much in the way of removal, but green has never been known for its removal. Here are my top 5 commons.

5. Agent of Horizons

This guy has a good body for a good cost allowing you to be aggressive. Where he really shines is if you get to splash blue in your deck. Then he becomes really good allowing you to close out long games.

4. Leafcrown Dryad

Here we find the last of the Nymph cycle. Reach is not exactly a stellar ability here, but what really makes this one shine is the cost. It is the cheapest of the Nymphs and you are getting good value here.

3. Fade into Antiquity

While Green doesn’t normally get removal, this can serve as a removal spell in a set full of Enchantment Creatures. The fact that this is one of the few cards that can easily deal with a God puts it high on my list.

2. Savage Surge

Here is another example of Green “removal”. Untapping and pumping a creature so it can surprise block is a very powerful affect, especially in a color with big creatures. It also allows you to win combats on the aggression as well as giving your guy pseudo-vigilance.

1. Voyaging Satyr

Mana acceleration is already good. Mana acceleration in a set with large Monstrous costs and expensive Bestow effects is even better. This guy allows you to go over the top of your opponents which is exactly what green wants to be doing.

Wrap Up

I know this was a long one, but I wanted to cover as much as information as possible. This will hopefully give you a good base to do well at the Prereleases this weekend. As always feel free to leave any comments or questions.

Eddie Walker
@praethus – Twitter
praethus – MTGO
praethus at gmail dot com