Help me understand splashing a third color in sealed
Limited forum
Posted on Sept. 28, 2018, 11:56 a.m. by RedUndead40
I almost always run 2 colors at a prerelease. With GRN not only having the mechanical synergy but also the abundance of gates, it seems like its time to splash a third color.
I'm playing Golgari and (hopefully) splashing blue for some Surveil synergy. Can anyone give me tips on how to treat this? I'm new to splashing.
Let's say I'm 45% black, 45% green, 10% blue. How many blue sources should I run? If my cards are split more like 1/3 of each, is that advisable to just split my mana up evenly between the 3, or is it better to focus on two and splash a couple of sources for one or two blue cards?
Really any tips on splashing / building three colors would be appreciated.
Whenever I am splashing a third color I will pay attention to how many mana in that color I need to cast each card. If everything is one then maybe you don't need as many in your breakup because you don't need multiples to cast the cards. Something like Cancel may mean I want to add an extra source. I agree with cdkime that 4 is probably a good place to start and if you have a couple cards requiring you might want to bump it to 5. And obviously dual lands whenever possible...
September 28, 2018 3:36 p.m.
AwesomeOctopus says... #4
When it comes to splashing a third, although some of the best cards are double colored (they are designed this way to restrict you) think really hard about splashing a double colors in your 'splash' color, in the example above i would not splash for cancel because 1) it is shitty in limited and 2) unless it's a major bomb it's likely to be a dead card in my hand that I can't cast, remember it doesn't matter how good the card is if you can't cast it, this is especially true for low cmc cards you need to curve into for them to be effective. I generally over represent the minor color so in your hypothetical case, I would run 6/7 swamps, 6/7 forests and 4 islands. I would also, assuming I picked up my splash color before pack 3, really try to prioritize getting at least 1 tapland, which wizards has been consistently printing in sets as commons and uncommons.
September 28, 2018 8:23 p.m.
DragonKing90 says... #5
i tried using a 3-color deck at the dominaria prerelease against my better judgment, and i lost a majority of my matches. if you manage to get a few guildgates then you "might" be able to go for it, but i personally am not a fan of lands that enter tapped. it can be really frustrating having a card in your hand that costs 4, having 3 lands, and then drawing into a land that enters tapped for example.
upon checking the spoilers, i see only 1 common green card for mana fixing (Urban Utopia), and 2 at uncommon (Circuitous Route and District Guide). so if you're determined on using 3 colors, be sure to include those cards if you're lucky enough to pull them.
Caerwyn says... #2
It depends on what your sources are and when you want to cast blue. If you want blue early, you'll need more sources, which will be a problem in the later game. If you want it late, you can probably run fewer. It's gonna be a lot of playing it by ear based upon what you get. I'd say 4 lands sources is probably a good middle of the road place to start.
Make use of keystones and duel lands if you get them. I can't recall off the top of my head if Green gets common colour fixing this set, but that would certainty help. But, if not, don't try to force it. Synergy is nice, but hitting your curve is generally more important.
Amusing note, I had one prerelease I had perhaps the worst sealed pool I'd ever seen. It was a mix of high-mana creatures, no removal, no great combat tricks. I ended up having to use three colours just to have some semblance of a curve. None of those colours were Green, but I had drawn a solid selection of Green colour-fixing cards. At that point, since I was already at four colours and had decent fixing, I decided to go all out and fulfil my goal of a five-colour prerelease deck. Surprisingly, I somehow ended up winning a couple rounds. It was a blast to play, and provided great amusement to my opponents.
Just goes to show--you can make pretty much anything work, so long as you pull some good colour-fixing to support your plan.
September 28, 2018 12:16 p.m. Edited.