Luyman's Term's #12: M15 Limited Report

This past July, I attended my first ever Magic pre-release event. Since it was my first, I set a simple goal for myself of not leaving with a losing record. I walked in with a decent idea of how I would accomplish this. I thought that a WU aggressive would perform pretty well, so I thought I would try that. To give myself the best chance at this, I decided to pick blue as my color because I felt it was stronger than white overall, and I wanted to be able to have a decent back up plan in case WU didn't work out. I thought that blue paired with any other color would be stronger than white paired with any other color. Also, I really wanted to run Ensoul Artifact on an Ornithopter for the dream 5/5 flier on turn 2.

Well, What Did You Open?

I opened my packs and immediately went for the rares. I found myself looking at the following:

1. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
2. Sliver Hive
3. Sliver Hivelord
4. Chasm Skulker
5. Shield of the Avatar
6. Mercurial Pretender
7. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled II

I found myself slightly underwhelmed, as I was hoping that I would open at least 3 rares in either white or blue. I decided all was not lost, as I still had a slew of common and uncommon cards to look through. I went ahead and sorted everything by color, and counted how many cards were in each pile. I don't remember exactly how many cards I had in each color, but I do remember my white cards numbered in the single digits. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to run my dream WU deck. Once again, I found myself slightly underwhelmed. My black looked to be pretty good though, so I decided to go UB.

What Did You Build?

Here is the deck I ended up running:

• Creature (17)
• 1 Accursed Spirit
• 1 Aeronaut Tinkerer 
• 1 Amphin Pathmage
• 1 Black Cat
• 1 Chasm Skulker
• 1 Child of Night
• 1 Gravedigger
• 1 Mercurial Pretender
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
• 1 Ornithopter
• 1 Rotfeaster Maggot 
• 1 Shadowcloak Vampire
• 2 Typhoid Rats
• 1 Xathrid Slyblade
• 1 Witch's Familiar
• 1 Zof Shade
• Non-Creature Spells (4)
• 1 Turn to Frog
• 1 Caustic Tar
• 1 Ensoul Artifact
• 1 Sign in Blood
• Artifact (2)
• 1 Shield of the Avatar
• 1 Rogue's Gloves
• Land (17)
• Swamp 10
• Island 7
• Sideboard
• I decided not to bother. To be perfectly honest, I forgot I had one. I was just so nervous since it was the biggest event I had ever been a part of and I was just ready to play Magic.

While my dream of a WU aggro deck didn't quite pan out, I would have the opportunity for the Ensoul/Ornithopter dream to come to fruition and I was fine with that. I thought I might be able to steal a game or two with that combo (and that I did). I felt pretty confident in my deck, thinking that my main win-con would be just to stay alive until I could make Chasm Skulker/Ornithopter huge, or make things unblockable with the Pathmage. 

While I don't remember exactly how each of my rounds played out (in my defense, this was 6 weeks ago), I do remember how the deck performed overall...which was underwhelmingly. It was inconsistent at best, and a typical newby build at worst. I'm almost certain I fell into the trap of playing as many rares as possible, as Mercutial Pretender was almost always a 6-drop Typhoid Rat. I'm sure I could have put just about anything else in that spot and been better off.

How Did You Do?

I ended up going 2-2-1 in matches and 8-6-1 in games. Both matches I lost went to three games, so I consider the night a success. I've since participated in one other sealed deck event (going 2-2) and an M15 draft (2-1). I remember a lot less about these two events, but I do remember I ran WB in both and that I opened 2 Souls of Theros and a Liliana Vess in the sealed pool. So, overall I have a winning record in M15 limited, which is a lot more than I can say for JBT limited. I think I'm getting better, but the sample size is probably too small to know for sure. What do you think of my deck build? Do you think I fell into the trap of trying to play too many of my rares? What do you think were cards I could have sided in/out against decks I was weak against?