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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017

While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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Deckbuilding with Doug Tice

Anand Khare

November 05, 2005

Four rounds have passed here at $10K Wizard World Texas, and players now get to build a second deck from a new Sealed Pack card pool for the final four rounds of the day. For this second round of deck construction, I join Doug Tice, all-around great player and winner of one of the three previous North American Sealed Pack $10K events. Doug went to the Sneak Preview, so he’s had a look at some of these cards before. Despite some limited familiarity with the cards and his excellent ability at Sealed Pack, Doug’s off to a rough start today. He’s currently 2-2, and he needs to win his next four matches to make Top 24 and come back tomorrow.

Doug opened the deck that he had received, and for the second time in a row, he got the deck that Ryan Jones had registered. Doug verified that the deck registration sheet was accurate and then went through his cards to see what he could use. Rather than the method that many other pros use—separating his cards into piles by team and then selecting which teams would form the core of his deck—Doug sorted every single one of his characters by cost and put them into large piles. A few cards were immediately tossed into an unplayable pile. “Nice rares,” he said with a grimace, pushing aside a Kooey Kooey Kooey and two copies of Monitor Womb Station.

Doug laid out the rest of his plot twists and locations and evaluated his situation. “This isn’t the worst.” His JLA and JLI weren’t very impressive—an unusual card pool—but he had a number of good Injustice Gang and Secret Society cards. Among them were All Too Easy, one of the better offensive plot twists in the set. Doug went about paring down his characters. “I’m looking for leaders,” he explained. He fanned out three cards that showed me why; Sinister Citadel, Mysterious Benefactor, and Lead By Example all work very well with leader cards. After his first round of cuts, he was satisfied. “I have a leader character at every drop.”

By this time, JLA had been completely cut from the deck. “Can I cut JLI, too?” wondered Doug. It didn’t appear that he could, but then he changed his mind again, and out they went. He worked very quickly, and after less than fifteen minutes, he had his completed deck in front of him. I asked him if he thought he would be able to 4-0 with this deck. “This is a little better than I thought it was at first . . . but I would have to get lucky. I would be surprised if I went 4-0 with this; I think 3-1 is a little more reasonable.” Later, as he handed in his deck, Doug had some more thoughts on it. “I really only have two team affiliations . . . I really like that. This deck is consistent.”

Played Cards

Characters

Wonder Woman, Princess Diana

2 Captain Boomerang, George Harkness

David Clinton ◊ Chronos, The Time Thief

Evan McCulloch ◊ Mirror Master, Smoke and Mirrors

Circe, Immortal Sorceress

Tattooed Man, Living Ink

Captain Cold, Leonard Snart

Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue

Henry King ◊ Brainwave, Sinister Psionic