Last week, I was able to test out Sealed Draft using my Cube and a guinea pig friend. Zach is a Limited junkie who is always up for a Draft. After two seasons on the same Team Draft league squad, I took a break, and his new squad is something special. Regardless, one day after work, we met up, and I passed out a thirty-card Sealed pack to Zach before engaging in a heads-up grid Draft.

My Sealed pack included a very strong white token base, but it also had some very powerful cards like Man-o'-War, Morbid Plunder, and Blightning. So of course, I avoided the powerful side of things when I saw a War Flare. I then put together a nice aggressive Boros deck. Unfortunately for me, Zach was able to construct a midrange Orzhov build complete with Syndic of Tithes and Basilica Screecher. I was never able to establish a foothold in any of the games and was slowly asphyxiated by Zach’s army.

I learned a valuable lesson that, sometimes, might makes right. Unlike some of my previous grid Drafts, I wasn’t trying to build multiple decks from one pool, but rather, just one. In this case, raw power was going to be more important than synergy. Playing over the Draft in my mind, I could have built a fairly strong Jund or Grixis deck with ample fixing to help play up the raw card advantage in my pool.

I wanted to dive deeper into this idea of shifting dynamics. I assembled a random booster pack from my Cube for review, as though it were my first pack in a Draft.

Cube Pack

• White (1)
• 1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest

• Blue (3)
• 1 Bone to Ash
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Omenspeaker

• Black (2)
• 1 Dead Weight
• 1 Fill with Fright

• Red (2)
• 1 Ill-Tempered Cyclops
• 1 Lightning Strike

• Green (3)
• 1 Basking Rootwalla
• 1 Kozilek's Predator
• 1 Llanowar Empath

• Artifact (1)
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye

• Gold (3)
• 1 Sigil Blessing
• 1 Sluiceway Scorpion
• 1 Strangling Soot

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Facing these choices for a pack one, pick one scenario is not straightforward. Green and blue are likely to yield two in-color picks if selected first, but none of the cards is a windmill-slam first pick. Counterspell is very good, as are both green 4-drops, but they are not the way I want to start a Draft. Black has two very good removal spells in Dead Weight and Strangling Soot (even if the latter falls into Rakdos in my Cube). White has a strong piece of card advantage in the Totem-Guide Hartebeest, while red has one of the best point-and-click kill spells in Lightning Strike. Heck, even Pilgrim's Eye is a reasonable first pick if you really want to remain open.

Card advantage, however, reigns supreme early. This narrows the field, in my mind, to Totem-Guide Hartebeest, Bone to Ash, Kozilek's Predator, Llanowar Empath, and Strangling Soot. Lightning Strike also earns a nod on pure rate. Out of these, the blue card is easily the worst, and the green cards are next out—all of them are just too costly. Similarly, the Hartebeest costs quite a bit and absolutely shapes the nature of the Draft moving forward.

So between Lightning Strike and Strangling Soot, what’s the pick? For me, it would probably depend on the day, as both are exceptional cards. Still feeling burned from avoiding more powerful options in my last Draft, I’m more likely to settle on Soot this time.

But what happens when we introduce a Sealed pack into the mix. Would the decision-making process change? Taking another thirty cards from my stack, I was gifted this pool:

Cube Sealed

• White (4)
• 1 Apex Hawks
• 1 Custodi Squire
• 1 Kabuto Moth
• 1 Sensor Splicer

• Blue (3)
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 1 Foresee
• 1 Frost Lynx

• Black (5)
• 1 Corrupt
• 1 Disfigure
• 1 Font of Return
• 1 Mardu Skullhunter
• 1 Strands of Undeath

• Red (5)
• 1 Borderland Marauder
• 1 Ember Beast
• 1 Ghitu Slinger
• 1 Mardu Scout
• 1 Searing Blaze

• Green (6)
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Nylea's Disciple
• 1 Pheres-Band Tromper
• 1 Rumbling Baloth
• 1 Savage Punch
• 1 Symbiosis

• Artifact and Land (4)
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Simic Guildgate
• 1 Tranquil Cove

• Gold (3)
• 1 Blightning
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Cunning Strike

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Examining this pool independently leaves us many options. The mana seems to be there to support a solid Bant deck, and thankfully, Custodi Squire and Foresee are two of the cards at the top of the curve. Between the three lands and these cards, I could see the foundation of a fairly strong midrange deck taking shape. This is only enhanced by the presence of some serious beef in Pheres-Band Tromper and Rumbling Baloth alongside the fairly annoying Sensor Splicer. Tying it all together are Coiling Oracle and Elvish Mystic to help speed up the threats. In the same vein, Simic could provide a nice curve of Elvish Mystic into Frost Lynx into your 4-drop of choice.

The final deck that looks intriguing from this pool is an Izzet tempo build. With Frost Lynx, Borderland Marauder, and Mardu Scout, it is not hard to imagine a scenario in which these cards come down early and then seal the deal with a Cunning Strike.

So, taking these thirty cards into consideration, I would definitely want to skew blue. Simic and Izzet seem to be leading the way, and I may give the nod to red given the removal options in the color, as nice as Savage Punch may be. Rakdos also has its own siren song that will keep it in the mix.

Back to the pack from the Draft, things have changed. Given the framework of Simic, Izzet, and Rakdos, the following cards are in the lead:

• Dead Weight
• Lightning Strike
• Strangling Soot

Given how the Izzet and Rakdos decks want to play, I would almost definitely take Lightning Strike here. While it may not be the most powerful option, it plays very well with two potential builds while not being too far of a drop off in power from Strangling Soot.

Do you agree? What would you first pick be from the pack before reviewing the sealed pool? How about after?

Let’s go over one more pack and pool. Given no other information, what is your first pick from this pack?

Cube Pack

• White (2)
• 1 Stormfront Pegasus
• 1 Squall Drifter

• Blue (3)
• 1 Gryff Vanguard
• 1 Sky Ruin Drake
• 1 Preordain

• Black (3)
• 1 Fallen Askari
• 1 Pith Driller
• 1 Twisted Abomination

• Red (2)
• 1 Mogg War Marshal
• 1 Puncture Blast

• Green (3)
• 1 Hooting Mandrills
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nantuko Vigilante

• Artifact (1)
• 1 Myr Sire

• Gold (1)
• 1 Blind Hunter

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And how does this Sealed pool change your mind (if at all)?

Cube Sealed

• White (6)
• 1 Attended Knight
• 1 Aven Liberator
• 1 Daring Skyjek
• 1 Master of Diversion
• 1 Infantry Veteran
• 1 Raise the Alarm

• Blue (3)
• 1 Coral Barrier
• 1 Deep Analysis
• 1 Mist Raven

• Black (3)
• 1 Chittering Rats
• 1 Morbid Plunder
• 1 Undead Executioner

• Red (5)
• 1 Firebolt
• 1 Gore-House Chainwalker
• 1 Plated Geopede
• 1 Searing Spear
• 1 Skirk Marauder

• Green (5)
• 1 Aerie Ouphes
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Sentinel Spider
• 1 Slaughterhorn
• 1 Yavimaya Granger

• Artifact and Land (5)
• 1 Bonesplitter
• 1 Opaline Unicorn
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Selesnya Sanctuary

• Gold (3)
• 1 Qasali Pridemage
• 1 Soul Manipulation
• 1 Steamcore Weird

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Sealed Draft is quickly becoming a preferred way to experience my Cube, and it may result in me adding cards before much longer. I might be trying to make fetch happen, but as long as the drafters are having fun, it’s all fair. We can force archetypes—why not formats?