What are you doing here?

That's right. Here I am, one of the Commander guys, writing about a Prerelease. But here's the thing: Limited, Construction, Commander, Cube... it's all deck construction.

One thing Commander players know is how to build decks. So let's look, instead, at an approach for building from a sealed pool, with a lens on Magic: The Gathering Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

BRU(T)

I've heard a few ways to use this acronym, but I learned it as B.R.U.T.. This is the way I build a deck in Limited.

• Bombs - almost exclusively Creatures, are often big. We're not overly worried about abilities here, just Power, Toughness, and Mana Value, though evasion can be important.
• Removal - anything which can remove a Creature. Commander players look for "Destroy target Creature" or "Exile Target Creature," but in Limited, a three-mana "deal three damage distributed among one, two, or three Creatures" is removal.
• Utility - this is card draw, support (like Equipment or Auras), and mana fixing (like, say, Frog Butler), and it includes Creatures which are not Bombs.

Tricks - these are Instant-speed and affect Combat. The one which jumped out for me the most was Pain 101.

Okay, what now?

Now you need to build a deck. We know it needs to be 40 cards.

Anyone who's read my Commander stuff knows I'm a serious advocate for starting with 40 Lands in a 100-card deck. Similarly, I run 18 Lands in my 40 card decks. Why?

Because I really don't want to miss my Land drops. Limited is almost always decided in the red zone, by dealing damage with Creatures. One's ability to continue to play cards throughout the game and play more and stronger cards each turn because of more mana, is critical to their success.

With 18 Lands, you run a statistical 0% chance of drawing no Lands in your first eight cards. It's about 4% for one, 15% for two, and 27% for three and four, which means in over half your games, you'll have three or four Lands by your first draw.

It's worth noting here if you run 17 Lands your chances of having three or four by the first draw is about the same. The difference is over the course of the game.

If you have anything worth 5 mana or more, your chances of getting the mana by the time you need it starts to drop as you lower the Land count. My vote: Assume 18 and go for less if your mana curve happens to be really low.

Figure Out What to Play

Now, you need to look at your pool. The best first step is to break it down by color. I like eight columns across my mat. I set any special Lands aside; they don't guide me but they do add potential value later. So, we're looking at eight piles.

White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Colorless, Hybrid, Mutlicolor.

I think it's worth it to break the hybrids out when you have them, because they can run in decks a regular multicolored card can't.

The first thing we're looking for is volume. In my case, I had more Black and White cards than anything else, so that pointed me in that direction.

Here's an important note, especially for Sealed decks: often, the set tries to point you in a direction. In the case of TMNT, that means enemy-color pairs. The set is all about pairing a color with another color opposite it in the color wheel, meaning , , , , and .

However, it's important you look at the cards you have and not try to force some synergy. My next most likely pairing was and if I had some removal I would have gone for it. Don't get distracted: you're building a deck, not a theme.

Bombs Away!

Look at your three largest colors. (Ignore multicolored for now, but if you set aside some awesome bomb in two colors, keep it in mind. Foot Ninjas was mine, and it was lucky it was in my most common colors.)

You're looking for Creatures with big Power, mostly. If they have some relevant ability, great, and any kind of Evasion (Flying, Trample, Menace, or "can't be blocked") should be valued very highly.

Other Creatures that count here are things like that EPF Point Squad from before, or Mighty Mutanimals (which I nicknamed Grranimals for the evening); these are not huge, but they provide power either over time or over multiple Creatures or both.

The Last Ronin's Technique is another example; while it's not a Creature, it makes three Creatures. It also slots into Utility and Tricks but casting it at 4 mana for three guys and 3 power is just fine.

Pull those cards out and set them aside.

Removal Is Key

Hopefully your bombs have given you some direction. Now it's time to pull all - and I mean all - of your removal in those colors. Dimensional Exile, Retro-Mutation, Anchovy & Banana Pizza, Bot Bashing Time, and Mutant Chain Reaction are all examples.

We're not looking for the world's best removal. We're looking for removal. It's okay if it's Sorcery-speed and costs 5 mana. Does it kill something?

Take all the cards in your colors and set them aside. Additionally, if you have no removal in your colors, look at your next largest color. Do you have some there? Probably time to change, give up on the bombs in the removal-less color, and swap.

I want between four and seven bombs in my limited decks; that makes sure I'll see a couple. After that, I want all the removal I can run. Since I'll never have enough to fill the rest of the deck, leaning into as much as I can get always pays off.

Utility-ize

Now we're working, most likely, with two colors. Good. Time to go through the rest of the cards you've got in those colors.

One of the most important thing we're looking for is useful early Creatures.

We are especially interested in two- and three-drop Creatures, though utility can be found at higher and lower Mana Value as well. High Power (extra damage if it gets through, ability to trade up) and high Toughness (ability to block early Creatures and survive) are both great.

I really liked High-Flying Ace and Lord Dregg, Insect Invader here, but I also had good luck with my promo card, Prehistoric Pet, and East Wind Avatar.

These can have useful abilities stapled to them, like April O'Neil, Kunoichi Trainee and her Scry 2 when she Enters or just gum up the Battlefield to chip in damage or block.

Equipment is worth considering here too. I think I undervalued the Quintessential Katana in my pool, though I really didn't want to have one fewer Creature in my deck, considering how many go-wide decks I encountered in my games. I did run my one Skateboard; it's cheap, and Haste is quite relevant, especially since I ended up running a bunch of Sneak.

Sticking Skateboard onto Prehistoric Pet and jamming it through to drop Shredder, Unrelenting and hitting for six was a great feeling.

Put your utility cards with your bombs and removal.

Take Stock

It's time to see where you are.

Scoop up all the cards not in your two colors and any multicolored cards you can't play at this point as well and set them aside.

Look through the multicolored cards you can play and consider if any of them would be good in your deck, or better than something you've already got. If I'm in or and I have a Mikey & Don, Party Planners, there's a good chance I want it in my deck. Put those in now.

Now lay them out by Mana Value. Don't consider alternate costs like Sneak at this point; you're looking at how much it will cost to hard-cast anything.

You want a curve, starting at either zero or one one-drops, with a couple (maybe three or four) two-drops, then heavier at three- and four-drops (six or seven of each), then two or three five-drops and one or two six- or seven-drops. You may or may not have any one-drops, and it's okay if you don't.

If you're really heavy on two- and three-drops, that can be okay too. You probably want to make sure you're going to make a lot of Creatures, because your small stuff will get outclassed by bigger things. But if you're making a ton of Token Creatures and know you'll be attacking early and wide, keep the curve low and plan on running 17 Lands.

If your curve is vastly outside of three and four, it's time to redistribute. Tons of two-drops, and you can't go wide? Consider some bombs. You can splash colors for bombs (more on that later). Don't have any? It might be time for a new color.

If you're heavy on five- and six-drops? Cut some bombs and maybe some high-cost removal. Grounded for Life is a great example of a solid card which, if you have enough removal at lower Mana Values, can go.

Once you've got a curve laid out, it's time to count cards. Hopefully, you have:

• 4-7 Bombs
• 4-8 Removal spells
• 7-10 Utility spells (most of which should be Creatures)

That should put you between 19 - 22 cards. If you have more then it's time to cut, preferably from higher Mana Values; most likely, at this point, it's better to cut a weak bomb than a middling utility Creatures, because you want to be able to cast spells in the early part of the game.

Tricks of the Trade

When I look at a new card, I immediately look at it from the standpoint of a Commander player.

Continue? is an excellent example of a great Commander card. For 2 mana, I can pick up to four Creatures I lost this turn and put them back on the Battlefield? That's protection from Wrath of God, Crux of Fate, or any number of other wipe-the-board spells which seem to happen again and again in a game of Commander.

On the other hand, it's a pretty terrible card in Sealed. Yes, it can have use; if someone kills one of your big things, you can pay two and get it back. Pain 101 does the same thing but better because if it's dying in Combat it'll also take its killer down too.

Most likely, the slot Continue? would get is better given to another Creature to gum up the board, or, if you've got it, another removal spell to get rid of something of theirs. Not a lot of Wrath of God-style effects in Limited.

Mouser Attack!, though, is great as a trick in Limited. For 2 mana, we can either drop a 1/1 Creature Token onto the board (making a surprise blocker, perhaps?), or we can give something +3 to Power and First Strike. This can be used offensively or defensively, is cheap, and can be cast at any time.

Most likely, you have only one to three slots for tricks, so pick carefully. I tend to prefer a mix (you can always sideboard between games if something becomes case-specific). Surprise ways to win the game (like the Channel on Action News Crew) and make your Creatures more formidable in Combat (looking at you, Saved by the Shell) are the abilities we want here.

It's worth noting: if you already have 22 cards, skip tricks. You'll see in a game or two if you're desperate and need to find a slot, but as a rule, tricks are optional.

It's Mana Time

Now you've got your 22 cards, and they're laid out according to Mana Value across your playspace. Time to count every colored pip you've got on the mat. A hybrid pip counts as 0.5 of one, so you may end up with a fraction. If you're in two colors, you'll have two numbers.

Add up any Lands from your pool you're running. These include any dual Lands you got in your colors and any utility Lands you might have gotten. Subtract that number of Lands (in my case it was one, but I didn't splash) from 18, which is the number of Lands you'll be running.

Now do a rough percentage of Basics to pips. Say, for example, you're making a deck, and you have 14.5 pips and 9.5 pips, plus 16 slots for basic Lands.

I'd round the numbers up in my head (15 and 10) and decide I want two Swamps for each three Forests. That means I'd want six Swamps and nine Forests.

However, that's only 15 Lands, and we need 16, so now I look at my curve. Are my early drops weighted towards or ? Whichever one has more in three-drops and fewer I'd add the extra, so I'd wind up with six Swamps and ten Forests or seven Swamps and nine Forests.

A few more examples to get into the process:

I have 15 slots, 20 pips of one color and five of the other, which means I want approximately four of the first color for each one of the second, so I would run 11 of the first color and four of the second.

I have 18 slots, 13 pips of one color, and 14 of the other. I split them down the middle, running nine of each.

I have 16 slots, 18 pips of one color and 11.5 of the other. This is close enough to the first example that I want three of the first for two of the second, so I would run nine of the first and seven of the second.

There are a couple of side cases worth considering.

For ease, I ignore dual Lands. I look at the number of slots I have for Basic Lands and do my calculation based on that. Since dual Lands can be both, that lowers the amount of Basics I need.

Similarly, Evolving Wilds and Ash Barrens - cards which can go get a Basic of any color - count as dual Lands. They get what you need in the moment.

If I have a special Land which taps for one of my colors, that counts towards my Basic Land count for that color. There are no such lands in TMNT, but if you have a Land in one of your colors which does something else you want, count it towards your Basic Land slots for that color.

This does not have to be exact math, but feel free to run the percentages on your calculator. It's all about rough averages which give you the best shot at drawing what you need.

Corner Cases

Splashing is the term we use to describe dipping into another color just a little. This works in Limited because it's often a slow format, and with just three or four sources of in your deck, you can probably run a single copy of Stockman, Mad Fly-entist.

You don't have to cast this spell right on time. If you have, say, a TCRI Building (which taps for and ), plus an Ash Barrens, you can run a single Island and you should be able to get in order to cast this. However, don't splash unless you really are okay without casting it - you might not be able to.

Also, sometimes your pool will simply yell at you to try something different from "attack with Creatures until dead." If you have two copies of Kitsune's Technique, you might want to try to mill someone out. If you have three Prehistoric Pets, that's a good reason to push into Sneak. Stuff like that.

Don't be afraid to let the cards guide you.

What about me?

Here's my deck.

WB Fliers | Sealed | Mark Wischkaemper

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Bebop, Warthog Warrior
• 1 Foot Ninjas
• 1 High-Flying Ace
• 1 Insectoid Exterminator
• 1 Karai, Future of the Foot
• 1 Leonardo, Big Brother
• 1 Lord Dregg, Insect Invader
• 1 Mighty Mutanimals
• 1 Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising
• 1 Prehistoric Pet
• 1 Savanti Romero, Time's Exile
• 1 Shredder, Unrelenting
• 3 East Wind Avatar

• Instants (3)
• 1 Death in the Family
• 1 Make Your Move
• 1 The Last Ronin's Technique

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Karai's Technique

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Uneasy Alliance

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Skateboard

• Lands (18)
• 7 Swamp
• 10 Plains
• 1 Foot Headquarters

Buy This Deck Export text

I didn't capture my entire pool but, suffice to say, there was no other deck in this batch of cards. Among other things, you are looking at the sum total of my removal spells - nothing in Red or Blue or Green. That is 100% of the removal spells in my pool.

The pull, aside from the interaction, was from Savanti Romero, Time's Exile, the three East Wind Avatars, and Shredder, Unrelenting. Grranimals was also strong, though I didn't love the in the Mana cost.

Karai, Future of the Foot seemed very strong, especially if I could get my Sneak online, which I was able to do every time I got it out early in the game. Plus, I got a cool version of Karai's Technique, which would buff one of my things and kill one of theirs, even at Sorcery speed with Sneak.

That looks so cool.

What else did I learn?

First: / was very strong. It had solid Artifact synergy and was able to produce a vast amount of Token creatures and simultaneously grow its army exponentially with each new Creature.

If I stumbled at all on mana, I was run over by the Boros decks. In fact, every 3-0 at my event was a Red/White deck.

On the other hand, the set is quite fun. It's varied, with good synergy across color pairings, and the mechanics are common enough to actually get some use. Games felt fun and interactive, even against the decks.

There are fun interactions within the cards, and if the Turtles are your thing, the flavor absolutely slaps. I love that the classes use the lyrics from the original theme song.

I guess "Leads" wasn't a good enough name for a card, so poor Leo gets Leader's Talent.

Final Thoughts

I love Sealed. This reminded me of that; it's been a long time since I've done a Sealed event, and they're fun. They capture a lot of what I love about Casual Commander: slower, more bomb-heavy with close interactions and locked up Battlefields.

This set is quite fun. It does a great job of capturing the joy many of us have around the Turtles, and there's a wink to just about every part of the story, from the comics to the cartoon to the video games to the movies.

Building to BRUT with 18 Lands will not always build you a deck that will 3-0. But it will sometimes, and most importantly, it will work. You will draw your Lands and have the mana to cast your spells. You'll have a field and ways to manage your opponents' threats. The deck will work.

Thanks for reading.