Zedikar Unified, Week One

The first week of the Zendikar Unified Pauper Sealed League comes to an end today. First off, I must say that Polyjak has gone above and beyond when it comes to this event, providing an excellent website and quickly responding to the feedback he received from players. Everything has worked smoothly, and I am glad I chose to not only participate but sponsor this event as well.

While I opened some pretty solid Blue and White cards, overall I wasn't very impressed with my pool. I ended up building a mediocre U/W Flyers deck to start with, figuring that the consistency of two colors was probably better than trying to have a slightly three color deck with bad mana (especially since my only fixing was a marginal Lifespring Druid). I ended up going 0-2 with that build, and honestly was feeling pretty discouraged.

Chris Baker (aka DrChrisBakerDC) reached out to me, and I ended up sending him my pool. After looking it over, he suggested I go ahead and cut most of the bad White cards out of my deck and instead play Blue Green with a strong splash in White. The mana would be pretty sketchy, but when it came together he believed my chances would be much better. Here's the build he suggested:

Zendikar Unified

Week One

Creatures 2 Dawnglare Invoker 2 Reckless Scholar 1 Sky Ruin Drake 1 Calcite Snapper 1 Skywatcher Adept 1 Surrakar Banisher 1 Sporecap Spider 1 Netcaster Spider 1 Oran-Rief Survivalist 1 Eldrazi Skyspawner 1 Kozilek's Pathfinder 1 Tajuru Pathwarden 1 Lifespring Druid 1 Snapping Gnarlid 1 Eldrazi Devastator 17 cards Other Spells 1 Seer's Lantern 1 Treasure Hunt 1 Anticipate 1 Puncturing Light 1 Guard Duty 5 cards

Lands 6 Forest 8 Island 4 Plains 18 cards Sideboard 1 Snapping Creeper 1 Demystify 1 Relic Crush 1 Eland Umbra 1 Zendikar Farguide 1 Makindi Shieldmate 1 Negate 1 Shared Discovery 1 Whiplash Trap 1 Lone Missionary 10 cards

For space considerations, I didn't include my entire pool, but just the relevant Sideboard cards. While I ended up almost always including Whiplash Trap after sideboarding, overall I was pretty happy with this alternate build. I ended up going 2-1 with it, bringing me to a decent 2-3 record overall. The two copies of Dawnglare Invoker were by far my most valuable card, and I won many of my games off that card alone.

All of my games were pretty grindy. Removal, especially if it can deal with big creatures, seemed particularly important, especially given the unusual number of Invoker creatures being played (creatures with an eight-mana cost powerful ability) that often determine who will win the game. At least at this early stage, it seems like the format will be pretty slow, with lots of high Toughness creatures. Creatures with evasion are also proving to be quite strong.

Tomorrow we'll receive a new booster pack, so it will be interesting to see what possibilities open up. We will see.