Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

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.
Click here for more

Sealed Pack #1 with Dave Spears

Antonino De Rosa

March 18, 2006

Dave Spears needs no introduction. This well-liked mainstay of the Vs. community is one of the few select people with two PC Top 8s on his resume. He loves Vs. He once traveled to Germany from Alabama for a $10K, and soon he will be going to Australia for another. He's just a gamer's gamer.

On the subject of Sealed Pack, Dave claims that the game usually ends on turn 6. While building his sealed deck, the first thing he looked for was a good curve. He spread all of his characters on the table, sorted by team affiliation, and then looked at the holes each team had. Once he had an idea of what each team lacked, he moved on to all of his plot twists, locations, and equipment.

Dave was pretty quick to dismiss the Hellfire Club. His best card was Magneto, Black Lord, but he was missing the meat and potatoes of a good Hellfire sealed deck. He took a moment to lament the lack of 3-drops in his card pool, given their importance in the X-Men Sealed format. The next team Dave dismissed was Brotherhood. He was happy about the free Amelia Voght, but he had no Brotherhood 5-drops.

His eyes then lit up when he saw two copies of Turnabout, prompting him to ask, "Clobbering Time?" X-Men was set in stone as one of his teams. The Morlock card pool had two copies of The Beautiful Dreamer to fill in his 3-drop slot, along with Feral, which acts as an awsome 4- or 5-drop. The final card that put Dave on the Morlock bandwagon was Shrapnel Blast. "Wow, this card wins games."

The next thing that Dave looked at was his Mutant traits. He likes to have two Mutant traits in his deck, and after trying out multiple combinations, he concluded that Physical and Energy was the best combination.

Dave's toughest decision came when he had decide whether or not to splash a Senyaka as his fourth 3-drop. He opted not to, since the Plague in his deck would make a decent on-team substitute for a 3-drop if he had to miss on turn 3. He also took a while choosing between Sentinel Mark VI or an off-team Roberto Da Costa. He chose to play Roberto Da Costa, because of Iceman, Deep Freeze and his loyalty issues. His last decision was between playing an eleventh non-character card or a third 6-drop. He finally settled on Blow Hard, which is also a lot of fun to play. (When you attack with him, you can put your chin on the table and blow really hard until all of your opponent's characters actually fly into the support row. I do this all the time in R&D. It's a blast.) Dave's last cut was Iceman, Deep Freeze. He explained his choice, saying, "That's OK--the game will end on turn 6, and I don't have to lock my opponent's 6-drop." Even after cutting Iceman, Dave still kept Roberto Da Costa in his deck.

He claimed that with his decent deck and some luck, he should be able to go 4-0, shouting "Yes, I am that good!"

Well, Dave, we wish you luck, especially with hitting your 3-drop.

X-Men Sealed Deck

Dave Spears, $10K L.A.