How many colors in Sealed?

[1048576]

In Scars, it's really easy to make a strong 2-color deck with 15-16 lands because of the number of artifacts you get, but when I try to employ this strategy with other boosters, there's rarely any playable artifacts, so in making a two-color, 25 "card" deck I end up really sc****** the bottom of the barrel and playing several practically blank or almost purely sidedeck cards.

Is it better to play a 3-color, 18 land deck (ensuring you get mana of every color you need) with one of the colors not having any cards that cost 2 colored mana? This way, several of your cards are blanks of excess mana, but the actual cards you do play all tend to have a significant impact on the game?

Edit: why do my words keep having curse words in them. First it was fis-t-f-ul. Now it's scr-a-p-i-n-g.

[solsethmatt]

I drafted a red-green-black scars deck that was stacked with removal. It worked, I just try not to force anything. I pick the best card in the pack off the bat and see where that takes me. I personally love removal though so if i see an Arc Trail, the rare better be a bomb or else im going for the trail.

[Toshiro Umezete]

I can only assume because scrapping has crap in it.

Anyway what your asking depends entirely on format, some formats require 3 colors or even more (shards) and some like you to stick to one or two. (shadowmoor/eventide).

Typically 2 is the right answer even if you have to run a little subpar filler because the risk of adding a color outweighs the rewards.

[1048576]

Finally I ask a question on these boards and get a straight answer. Thank you so much.

You can make a tradeoff with the amount you find the colors you need with the amount you get flooded. If you're playing 3 colors and you get flooded a lot less than you find yourself missing the right colors, I think you're doing it wrong. If I'm in 3 colors, unless I get a ridiculous manabase, I'm playing 18 lands and a bunch of cantrips.

[AnimasPain2006]

Fi-s-t-f-u-l = S T F U
Sc-r-a-p-i-n-g = R A P I N G
Lol

I agree with Toshi (Ha!), but I will say this for Scars. Often times splashing for Sylvok Replica is acceptable if you happened to snatch one up and are short on playables. Just a side note of a very specific situation, but one I’ve had come up several times.

[1048576]

I drafted a red-green-black scars deck that was stacked with removal. It worked, I just try not to force anything. I pick the best card in the pack off the bat and see where that takes me. I personally love removal though so if i see an Arc Trail, the rare better be a bomb or else im going for the trail.

Haha, I feel you there. I once picked an Arc Trail P1P2 without even looking at the rest of the pack. I'll never know what the rare was. (I hope it wasn't Molten Tail Masticore or Contagion Engine!)

[scionofdarkness]

How my out look in Scars limited is the only 2 colors I would play would be B/G infect. Other than that you have to go with 3 colors with a decent amount of equipment.

[blue_yami_91]

I have only played since Zen but since then this is what I have accepted to be the maximum number of colors for an effective deck.

Zendikar: 2 Color
Zendikar-Worldwake: 2 Color
Rise: 2 Color, splashing the 3rd (Evolving Wilds gives you a nice fixer, I think 3/4 of all my Rise drafts ended up with a Jund colored deck)
M11: 2 Colors, splashing the 3rd (Terramorphic Expanse and Cultivate get you there easily)
Scars of Mirrodin: 2 Color, splashing the 3rd (Mana Myr and the lack of colored cards makes it happen)

Like Toshiro said, it really depends on the set. Some give you great color fixing, others don't.

[Mockingbird]

It also depends on what you pull. I've had to go three colors before the cards I got couldn't make a good one or two color deck, and I've chosen three colors because I had to in order to run all three bombs I pulled. (Heck, I've even witnessed someone run 4 colors before in a M11 draft).

[LeonD]

Yeah. Honestly though. Don't worry about what your decks gonna look like til after, like, the 4th or 5th pick. Draft whats simply good in those packs.

See an Arc Trail? Grab it.
Then a Vedalkin Certarch? Take that too.
Maybe something green is great in the next? Depends.

See if the rest of the pack has absolute crap for red, blue, or artifact. Even if there is useful stuff, you can let it go if you think you'll see it later. Special note: people are all over infect crap here. So if you let one of them go you probably wont see it again. It can be advantageous, sometimes, to run with non-infect colors since you can pass cards that are useable to you - but not better then others - and they'll have a better chance of coming back.

I won one of my FNM drafts with U/B Artifact. Absolutely zero infect.

[JayB]

Whenever i do a regular draft i usually usually look for key artifact cards first an see what colors remain after the first or second pass to pick my colors

In sealed i try to do mono color so i dont have any mana issues. Especially in sets like scars an besieged where theres loads of artifacts it's very easy to have a mono colored deck.

Scars - Black / Green
Besieged - Blue / Artifact

Max i usually do is 2 colors unless i get a bomb card with some artifacts that produce mana so i can splash the color in. But mostly i try to keep it one or two colors max. Deck's run more efficient that way

[1048576]

4 bombs in 4 different colors... 22 lands it is.

[Hatake-Kakashi]

4 bombs in 4 different colors... 22 lands it is.

Good luck grabbing that many bombs.

For those who care, my finished deck for the past 3 weeks has been tri-color and it's worked out very well all three times. I'm fairly certain the my land ratios have been 7-6-4 and I also ran 41 cards total if that matters...though to some people running any more than 40 is practically a sin...

[Toshiro Umezete]

Good luck grabbing that many bombs.

For those who care, my finished deck for the past 3 weeks has been tri-color and it's worked out very well all three times. I'm fairly certain the my land ratios have been 7-6-4 and I also ran 41 cards total if that matters...though to some people running any more than 40 is practically a sin...

yep your damned for doing so:p

I hate sealed but draft (a bit faster overall) for this format I can honestly say is 1-3 colors and unless you got some solid removal and bombs the third color is a splash tops. You do have some leeway with artifacts diluting mana commitments.

Be weird to switch back to a more normal format when m12 comes out.

[Hatake-Kakashi]

yep your damned for doing so:p

I hate sealed but draft (a bit faster overall) for this format I can honestly say is 1-3 colors and unless you got some solid removal and bombs the third color is a splash tops. You do have some leeway with artifacts diluting mana commitments.

Be weird to switch back to a more normal format when m12 comes out.

It seems i never specified draft....yea i talk about drafting haha.

[Koshi]

Usually when I draft, I tend to either go mono-colored aggro, or tri-colored aggro. NPH drafting is especially fun, since you can grab Mycosynth's to help your mana base, as well as Alloy Myr. i played 5CC in my last draft, took second to a MBC that somehow got both Karn AND Obliterator.

[Gougou]

in scars block

I always won with black/green infect aggro

just pick alots of removals like Dismember,Glissa's Scorn,Geth's Verdict and get bombs

[Oirad]

My experienced in limited is still not much, but for what I've seen you can actually make decent 3 colors deck, and that holds particularly true for SOM with so much colorless stuff, plus a couple of fetches (like Mycosinth Wellspring or Horizon Spellbomb). That said, of course one should only go for that if what would be the fillers are too weak, or simple has 3 strong colors (not too common, but it happens). It also helps a lot if no card-only one or two cards have more then one mana symbol...

[Koshi]

Yeah, playing 4-5 UU cards in a 2-3 color deck is hard.

[BankaiAlucard]

I mainly try to stay at 2 colors in sealed