(To see former World Championship Top 8 competitor, and all around nice guy Jeffrey Verwoerd's introduction into this sealed pool, go here)

This sealed deck was a rough to build. I think this could have been taken in a number of directions. Here is how I ended up with my final 30.


I always start with my allies first. You are going to play more allies then you will any other type of card so to me it’s the most important decision you will have to make. I like to line up my allies in order of cost in three different rows, Horde, Alliance, and neutral. I spread them out so I can see all the ally names. This will show you where gaps in the curve are. Looking at this pool we can see alliance has no one drops and neither class has any six drops. Alliance has [Bayner Cogbertson] and the amazing [Tidus the Relentless]; these two allies alone make me want to play alliance. The double [Razo'jun] and [Zerzu] make the horde three spot a bit weak. I like the double [Dominic Kandor] in alliance and with that I take the horde allies away and decide to play alliance


After trimming the fat my allies look like this.


2 [Fenton Guardmont]
1 [Jeniva Prescott]
1 [Bronze Drakonid]
1 [Emerald Soldier]
2 [Kalek Deepearth]
1 [Cadric Talworth]
1 [Bronze Guardian]
2 [Dominic Kandor]
2 [Azure Enforcer]
1 [Azure Skyrazor]
1 [Tidus the Relentless]
1 [Bronze Skyrazor]
1 [Emerald Acidspewer]
1 [Bayner Cogbertson]
1 [Savage Raptor]


That’s 19 allies, more than I want but I’ll cut the extras later, next I want to look at the abilities and equipment.


The first class that jumps out at me is mage with its three removal cards. You also can play [God-Grinding Grips] which can be expensive at times but also very hard to deal with. That’s only four cards so I might be a bit short.


Druid has two powerful equipment cards, [Skinned Whelp Shoulders] and [Lockjaw]. I already targeted eight dragonkins and we could certainly add in the other two so [Skinned Whelp Shoulders] would be quite powerful. There isn’t much to say about the combination of [Lockjaw] and [Arturius Hathrow]. The support cards of [Maim] and [Savage Bear Form] are fine but unexciting. With this build you would struggle to removal big allies, but it might be worth it for the double equipment.


Warlock has some interesting cards. [Seed of Corruption] is awesome, at times trading for two creatures. [Fel Blaze] can help get you back in the games against an aggressive opponent and has the potential for card advantage. [Dread Touch] and [Nether Inversion] are fine cards but nothing to get excited about. As with mage I can play [God-Grinding Grips]. Warlock has 4 abilities, one more than mage, which is important when we have [Azure Skyrazor] in the deck. Looking back at [Dread Touch], we might be able to get a huge turn in with [Azure Skyrazor], bouncing a protector and swinging for big damage.  Warlock also has [Sardok], which gives us a one drop that our alliance curve was lacking. 


After thinking about it for some time I decided to go with Warlock. I get six class cards to fill out deck out. I also am able to play one more cheap ability to help out [Azure Skyrazor] and [Azure Enforcer]. Two of the abilities can create card advantage, a big deal in sealed play. I also included the classless [The Firelord's Gift] to up the ability count to five to try and squeeze a bit more out of our blue dragonkin.


In sealed play I like to play eight quests and a minimum of seven. Sealed games tend to last longer than draft and drawing power from quests can sometimes decide the attrition war. Looking at the quests we can pick from it might be difficult to get to eight. The easy includes are [Cleansing Witch Hill], [The Essence of Enmity], [The Torch of Retribution], [What's Haunting Witch Hill?], and [Dragon, Unchained]. [A Bird In Hand] is next to join the team, it should hit more than it misses and we have a few spicy allies to dig up. That’s six so far and the rest of the quests look pretty bad. I want my quests to draw cards so I push aside [The Mighty U'cha], and [All That Rises], that leaves me with [Elemental Energy] and [Forged of Shadow and Flame]. I do a scan of our allies and abilities and find that we have no stash effects to help out...it looks like I’m going to have to choose one of these. I do have one equipment so I can activate [Forged of Shadow and Flame], but it would be a dead quest if I had to resource the [God-Grinding Grips]. [Elemental Energy] on the other hand is more expensive and I only have one way to get an elemental to make it draw two cards. I decided to go with [Elemental Energy]; I would rather be guaranteed to draw a card at five resources than have a chance at drawing a card at three. 


Here is what the deck looks like now.


1 [Sardok]
2 [Fenton Guardmont]
1 [Jeniva Prescott]
1 [Bronze Drakonid]
1 [Emerald Soldier]
2 [Kalek Deepearth]
1 [Cadric Talworth]
1 [Bronze Guardian]
2 [Dominic Kandor]
2 [Azure Enforcer]
1 [Azure Skyrazor]
1 [Tidus the Relentless]
1 [Bronze Skyrazor]
1 [Emerald Acidspewer]
1 [Bayner Cogbertson]
1 [Savage Raptor]


1 [Dread Touch]
1 [Fel Blaze]
1 [Nether Inversion]
1 [Seed of Corruption]
1 [The Firelord's Gift]


1 [God-Grinding Grips]


1 [A Bird In Hand]
1 [Cleansing Witch Hill]
1 [Dragon, Unchained]
1 [Elemental Energy]
1 [The Essence of Enmity]
1 [The Torch of Retribution]
1 [What's Haunting Witch Hill?]


33 cards, almost there. There are 20 allies night now, that’s more than I need to I’m going to look to cut the three cards from there first. When I look at a normal ally curve I like to keep the 2-4 spots at four allies each. The five spot I usually want 2-3 allies, and spots 1 and 6+ I want two allies or less. Right now we have five allies in the 2 and 4 spot and three allies in the 5 spot. [Jeniva Prescott] is the first to hit the bench, [Fenton Guardmont] works well with [Fel Blaze], and the two dragonkins are just better. Next to hit the bench is [Emerald Acidspewer]. The weakest of the five drops, we also have [The Torch of Retribution] so losing his ability won’t be a big deal. I also see with this deck turns five and six as turns to go off curve, making use of a fourth turn [Azure Skyrazor] or getting double attacks with [Bronze Drakonid]. With that in mind we won’t be pressured in to playing three 5 drops. The last cut is one of the [Azure Enforcer]s. I don’t see a need to play more than four 4 drops so someone needs to go. [Azure Skyrazor] is an auto-include so it’s between double [Azure Enforcer] or double [Dominic Kandor]. If this deck had one more ability I would switch it the other way but the way the deck is [Dominic Kandor]’s ability and him being a protector is going to be factor in more games than [Azure Enforcer]’s ability.


For the hero the easy choice is [Victor Baltus]. The only other choice is [Thira Anvilash] and I would rather make my [Sardock] a monster on turn two then make [Seed of Corruption] hit for one more damage.


So here you have it, the final 30 cards.


1 [Sardok]
2 [Fenton Guardmont]
1 [Bronze Drakonid]
1 [Emerald Soldier]
2 [Kalek Deepearth]
1 [Cadric Talworth]
1 [Bronze Guardian]
2 [Dominic Kandor]
1 [Azure Enforcer]
1 [Azure Skyrazor]
1 [Tidus the Relentless]
1 [Bronze Skyrazor]
1 [Bayner Cogbertson]
1 [Savage Raptor]


1 [Dread Touch]
1 [Fel Blaze]
1 [Nether Inversion]
1 [Seed of Corruption]
1 [The Firelord's Gift]


1 [God-Grinding Grips]


1 [A Bird In Hand]
1 [Cleansing Witch Hill]
1 [Dragon, Unchained]
1 [Elemental Energy]
1 [The Essence of Enmity]
1 [The Torch of Retribution]
1 [What's Haunting Witch Hill?]


The deck isn’t the best I’ve seen but I would be happy to open this at any tournament. It has some bomb allies with [Savage Raptor], [Azure Skyrazor], and [Tidus the Relentless]. There are cards that can create card advantage with [God-Grinding Grips], [Fel Blaze] and [Seed of Corruption]. And overall the allies curve is fine, with no stinkers in the pile. I think this is the best deck in the pool, but like any sealed deck it could have gone a number of different ways. Please let me know how you would have built it and if there was anything I missed, by commenting in the forums.