NPH pre-release. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Ah, sealed, what an irritating luck-fest.  Still, i just can't resist it, and especially the pre-release.  New cards a free shiny thing and the slim chance of opening bombs/money rares apparently outshine the more real chance of opening a mediocre or worse pool.

When i watched Tom open a Sword of War and Peace (i knew i should've sat in that seat) i should've known how my day would go.  The one mythic i opened in my pool was basically my only bomb, but it was a pretty good one.  Sheoldred, the Whispering One might be practically worthless anywhere outside of Sealed, but christ, it's good there.  I'm not exaggerating when i say that i cast it six times yesterday and i won those six games.  The other five i lost (for my fellow maths noobs, my record was 3-2 overall).

Still, my most awesome moment of the day came thanks to Necrotic Ooze.  I've played with this card in EDH and never really had it do anything.  But in my game three of my third match yesterday he was a beast.  He had infect from Vector Asp, firebreathing from Ogre Menial and Immolating Souleater (both in my colours, i was BRg) as well as the ping ability from Fallen Ferromancer.  Yeah, that one wasn't even close.  Ferromancer is crazy good, by the way - haivng two of those in my pool really helped me stall for Sheoldred.

I could've easily been 4-1, but i mis-played against Mike.  I was in a pretty good-looking board position so i was sandbagging lands, since i had upwards of eigh in play already.  Unforunately, i kinda forgot about the Tower of Calamties in my hand, and was pretty annoyed when he cast Tainted Strike on some random dude, i forget which one.  I hate infect as a mechanic, but that was totally avoidable.  My other loss earlier in the day also came against infect.  In fact, looking back, every single deck i played was infect-based apart from Patrick's, which i kinda raped by casting Sheoldred in both games.

In summary: sealed is still a horrible format, but if you open a bomb like Sheoldred, build around it and stall out until she takes over the game.  Just untapping once with her means the game is almost un-loseable.  Your opponent will have sacrificed a chump blocker and you'll have one of your stalling guys back.  Not to mention the awesomeness of swampwalk on a 6/6 when most decks are playing black to some extent.

Oh, and i guess as the author of a blog whose url is monoblackcontrol, i should probably be happy that my all-star card was black, right?  Still, couldn't it have been an Obliterator? :(