Infinite Crisis was an amazing Vs. System set. Not only was it one of the better sets for Sealed Pack so far, but its impact on Constructed has yet to be completely quantified. Still, at a glance, I get the feeling that Heralds of Galactus might be even better. Though it might lack some of the more powerful generic cards, the overall package of great art, powerful and innovative mechanics, and all-around playability make it a big winner in my eyes. As a renowned cynic, I was not only dizzy with anticipation before the Sneak Preview tournament, but I was also pleasantly surprised when it met my rather high expectations. I imagine that this column will reverberate with that enthusiasm for weeks.
For now, let’s get into some of the meat and potatoes that more typically reflect what you expect from this column. Here is the card pool I opened:
Heralds of Galactus
Galan, Famished
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth
Morg, Corrupt Destroyer
Human Torch, The Invisible Man
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Harbinger of Death
Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation
The Fallen One, The Forgotten
I Must Obey
Absorba Shield
Pacification
Cosmic Necessity
Kindred Spirits
Inspiring Demise
Relentless Onslaught
Elemental Battle
Inhumans
Luna Maximoff, Only Human
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth
Black Bolt, Illuminati
Human Torch, Sparky
Tonaja, The Responsible One
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Thing, Rockhead
Alaris, The Outgoing One
Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans
2 Dinu, Face of Terror
Invisible Woman, Flame On!
It’s Slobberin’ Time!
Terragenesis
Power Struggle
Kree
Kree Soldiers, Army
Dr. Minerva, Starforce
Captain Att-Lass, Starforce
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Soldier of the Empire
Ultimus, Starforce
Admiral Galen Kor, Lunatic Legion
Bron Char, Lunatic Legion
Korath the Pursuer, Starforce
Supremor, Starforce
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Enemy of the Empire
Live Kree . . . or Die!
Genetic Destiny
Conquered Planet
Hala
Universal Weapon
Doom
Moloids, Army
Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival
Doom-Bot Corps, Army
Sub-Mariner, Illuminati
Doom-Bot ◊ Dr. Doom, Cosmic Thief
Dr. Doom, Sorcerous Savant
Mask of Doom
Arsenal of Doom
Other
Captain America, Skrull Imposter
Rogue, Total Transformation
Titannus, Alien Conqueror
Barnacle, Acolyte
Pip the Troll, Protector of the Space Gem
Dr. Strange, Illuminati
Mr. Sinister, Supreme Geneticist
The Rapture
Pressed into Service, Team-Up
The Herald Ordeal, Team-Up
The Uni-Power
Interstellar Offensive
Starforce Strike
The Kyln
Mind Gem
I try to be as methodical as possible, but not having seen any of the cards before, I didn’t really have a point of reference. So, I ran through the cards as quickly as I could to see if anything stood out. While I normally don’t rely on non-character cards for direction, I couldn’t help but notice that I had what I considered to be very good Heralds-stamped plot twists. Inspiring Demise and Relentless Onslaught both seemed excellent. Absorba Shield was clearly a bomb. Kindred Spirits and Pacification looked like pretty good support cards. If I had Galactus, I Must Obey would have been one of the best cards in the set. Interestingly, I didn’t really notice at the time the high threshold cost of the cards, a theme throughout the set (and something I really like, as plot twist threshold has not really been much of a factor before now).
I was drawn to the Heralds characters straightaway, though I couldn’t help but be disappointed by my pool. Still, Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector and Morg, Corrupt Destroyer both seemed quite good, and Human Torch, The Invisible Man and Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Harbinger of Death definitely appeared above average. I had two rather average 6-drops to go along with these characters, but I was already pushing it five or six cards in. Unfortunately, my only other characters were two unplayable 1-drops. In a format where I heard turn 8 occurs with regularity, this team looked weak, especially without a Galactus. The plot twists were so powerful, however, that I considered running the Heralds if the rest of my pool was weak.
Fortunately, the next team I looked at was very deep in all the right places. The Inhumans brought exactly what I wanted; a solid curve. Three acceptable 2-drops warmed my heart, and I was very impressed with what I saw at the 3-slot. While Human Torch, Sparky was probably only average, both Tonaja, The Responsible One and Jolen, The Treacherous One were quite obviously excellent. As soon as he was previewed, I considered Jolen very powerful, and having a pool that could support him was a boon. With such good 3-drops, Luna Maximoff and Terragenesis suddenly became very good. The latter got even better with Thing, Rockhead being the optimal turn 4 play. Alaris, The Outgoing One seemed good enough, and I had three 6-drops to choose from. Invisible Woman, Flame On! rounded out the curve, and with very good plot twists in the form of Power Struggle and It’s Slobberin’ Time!, I believed I was half a team away from an excellent deck.
The revamped Doom team didn’t really seem to hold much gas at all. With only eight team-stamped cards, and some sketchy ones at that, there was little reason to push for Doom. In fact, Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival seemed to be my only real standout card with the Doom affiliation. I immediately judged cards like Doom-Bot ◊ Dr. Doom, Cosmic Thief too difficult.
The final major team of the set, Kree, more or less managed to come through with the goods. Where the Inhumans faltered on the curve, Kree picked up the slack. Although I had heard very good things about the press mechanic, the two extra 4-drops, two extra 5-drops, and additional 7-drop were a great relief. I at least like to make a safe curve (which for me, at the moment, looks something like this: Zero to two 1-drops, three to four 2-drops, four 3-drops, three to four 4-drops, two to three 5-drops, two 6-drops, and two 7-drops) with my Sealed decks, especially when I am new or uncomfortable with a set. There were other good cards in the team, though. A 3-drop and two 2-drops with press piqued my interest. Hala was definitely a good Sealed Pack card. Live Kree . . . or Die! was the sort of game-breaking card that I really wanted to run to give my deck a bit more edge. Finally, Conquered Planet seemed more than good enough, even if it was a little risky. Genetic Destiny felt too narrow for a Sealed Pack deck, and similarly, I couldn’t see myself satisfying the cost of Universal Weapon often enough to make it worth playing.
At this stage, after my review of the four major teams, I was looking at this deck:
Characters:
Luna Maximoff, Only Human
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth
Black Bolt, Illuminati
Captain Att-Lass, Starforce
Dr. Minerva, Starforce
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Soldier of the Empire
Human Torch, Sparky
Tonaja, The Responsible One
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Ultimus, Starforce
Admiral Galen Kor, Lunatic Legion
Thing, Rockhead
Alaris, The Outgoing One
Bron Char, Lunatic Legion
Korath the Pursuer, Starforce
2 Dinu, Face of Terror
Supremor, Starforce
Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Enemy of the Empire
Plot Twists:
Live Kree . . . Or Die!
It’s Slobberin’ Time!
Conquered Planet
Power Struggle
Terragenesis
Locations:
Hala
I was going to have to cut a 2-drop and a few 6-drops, but overall, I was pretty happy with the deck thus far. I’ve really started to become a fan of playing only three 4-drops in recent times, and with press covering the curve a bit here and there, I decided that I could afford to take the risk. Just to make sure, I had a look at the generic guys to see if any of them were good enough to force their way into the deck. None of the 2-drops or 6-drops were amazing, and given that I already had in-team characters at those slots, I left them alone. Similarly, the wonderful Barnacle, Acolyte was never going to make the deck. That left Captain America, Skrull Imposter, who I think is very good, and Titannus, Alien Conqueror, who looked okay. Still, I couldn’t see myself utilizing their many-teamed applications. I seemed to be stuck with the curve I had, which was admittedly not an altogether horrible situation to be in.
Before I could make any more character cuts, I needed to know what my non-character cards were going to be. With only two Team-Ups, I knew I would have to play both; not only is that the accepted standard, but I also had a lot of team-stamped effects that I wanted to pull off. That still left six cards to choose from for the rest of the slots.
In recent times, I have found my views on acceptable curve counts changing. I now not only think that three 4-drops is often more than enough, but I also have new views on the amount of 1- and 7-drops your regular curve deck should run. Those views, however, are best explained at other times. I only mention this now because I have found that I want more and more space in my deck for plot twists. As curve stats loosen up, access to game-altering plot twists is more and more necessary; I don’t ever like to play fewer than eleven plot twists anymore. I find that if you fall behind in a game and have drawn even two fewer non-character cards than your opponent, you will struggle to win, especially in Sealed Pack play. Given all this, there were three more non-character cards to select from six candidates.
The Rapture was quickly discarded. It just didn’t do anything in my deck. I want to play at least six combat modifiers that give either +2 ATK, +2 DEF, or some sort of recurring +1 ATK or +1 DEF. I don’t think you can win many games without giving yourself at least a few options in combat, so playing for at least six seems the minimum. With that in mind, I went with Interstellar Offensive. Other than this, I also like to have some sort of card that deals with concealed in Sealed, as hidden characters are becoming more and more prevalent and important. The Uni-Power is a more than acceptable card for such a purpose. Finally, I decided just to play it safe with the last choice, so I went with Starforce Strike to give my deck more stability. Mind Gem, Infinity Gem was much better than I thought it would be when I played someone else who had it, and it could easily have taken this slot in hindsight. The Kyln is also very good, and I think I missed the fact that it is basically a KO effect and thus underrated it; I was devastated by it later on. In hindsight, I think the last three cards I mentioned are all interchangeable for the final non-character slot.
With that, I just had to cut a few characters to submit the deck. At the 6-slot, I had an easy choice. Supremor, Starforce wasn’t in an archetypal enough deck to see play, so he left the team. Having a Dinu, Face of Terror power-up might have been nice, but given that it was the Sneak Preview, I decided to try out one copy each of Dinu and Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans. That gave me more options on turn 7 anyway, and it seemed like the right call. With my 2-drops, however, I think I made a mistake. The 2-drop slot isn’t really important in this format, since there are a lot of good stalling cards, so when I cut Dr. Minerva, I made two mistakes: First, I lowered my Kree count to seven, which is the minimum number of a major team with team-stamped effects that I like to play. Second, I didn’t really take stock of how good 2-drop press characters are. I probably should have cut Black Bolt, who didn’t really do anything except have above average stats on a turn when they weren’t important. The other characters at least did things.
Regardless, this is the deck I ended up with:
Characters:
Luna Maximoff, Only Human
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth
Black Bolt, Illuminati
Captain Att-Lass, Starforce
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Soldier of the Empire
Human Torch, Sparky
Tonaja, The Responsible One
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Ultimus, Starforce
Admiral Galen Kor, Lunatic Legion
Thing, Rockhead
Alaris, The Outgoing One
Bron Char, Lunatic Legion
Korath the Pursuer, Starforce
Dinu, Face of Terror
Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans
Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Enemy of the Empire
Plot Twists:
Pressed into Service, Team-Up
The Herald Ordeal, Team-Up
The Uni-Power
Live Kree . . . Or Die!
It’s Slobberin’ Time!
Conquered Planet
Power Struggle
Interstellar Offensive
Terragenesis
Starforce Strike
Locations:
Hala
I went a disappointing 1-2 with this deck, losing to a deck that gave itself +19 ATK on turn 6 in one game, and falling to a luckier draw against a similarly powered deck in the other game. The game I won was unfortunate for my opponent, so I had to play a lot of practice games to judge the cards in their fairest context.
The standout cards for me were Jolen, The Treacherous One; Thing, Rockhead; and Hala. Jolen is flat-out amazing, and the ability is almost worth skipping turns for. I am a big fan of press; any reasonably sized 2- or 3-drop press character is likely to be very good as part of an overall strategy. Power Struggle and Live Kree . . . or Die! will both be exceptional cards for their respective teams. Finally, anything that puts cosmic counters on characters more than once, like Terragenesis, seems very good in Sealed Pack.
Overall, I very much like the look of this set and hope that I will have plenty of time to draft it. There appear to be a lot of well-balanced but powerful options, and heavy team-stamping ensures that decks play somewhat fair. If ever a team signaled a return to curve, it is Heralds of Galactus, but I also think that press is probably the most interesting mechanic since reservist. While the Inhumans look like your standard, average team, they do have a lot of individually excellent cards. Doom, on the other hand, is very funky in this incarnation; I can already see this team and its quirky style of play and deckbuilding being very popular. I am also a big fan of small teams once they’re fully-fleshed out, and the Skrull team-up theme is clever and streamlined. If you haven’t yet played with this set, I don’t think you should wait any longer.