Welcome to another installment of Theoretically Speaking. In this episode, I will be sharing with you a recent tournament I attended. This was no normal tournament, though. At this tournament, each participant was given one booster box of Heralds of Galactus and told to build the best sixty-card deck possible. I intend to give you a true account of a player who had virtually no prior knowledge of the cards he opened and illustrate the success that can be attained given certain strategies. The goal of this article is to give you insight on how to build a Sealed Pack deck, as well as to preview what a potential Marvel Modern Age Constructed deck could look like many months before that format rears its head.

Why Didn’t I Know the Product?

If you’ve been keeping up with my articles, you’ll know that I recently tied the knot. However, this glorious day coincided with the Heralds of Galactus Sneak Preview tournament. While many of you were getting your first view of cards from the new set, I was sitting on the runway in Houston, wondering if I was going to die. What was that, you say? Well, let me fill you in.

It was my first day officially as a husband, and yes, it’s every bit as scary as it sounds. My wonderful wife and I were flying to Acapulco, Mexico, where, for one week, we would put work, friends, family, and (I hate saying this) Vs. System on hold to enjoy each other’s company and the wonderful environment we would be in. Well, little did we know it would take a while to reach this pleasurable locale. As we were taking off from the airport, a woman in front of my wife and I pushed her attendant button. Next thing we know, she is talking rather loudly, to the point that I can hear her speaking over the engines, as we are taxiing for take off. She looked frantic and said that she wanted off the plane immediately. My first thoughts ran to the movie Final Destination, where the lead character has a premonition of a plane crash and leaves the plane, only to watch the plane blow up. The pilot announced to the passengers that we would be turning around to “accommodate” a passenger, which was airport talk for “take the crazy off the plane.” As we were pulling back up to the gate, the woman went on and on about her luggage and said that if she couldn’t get her luggage off the plane, she would just take the flight to Acapulco and pick it up. Everyone was very uneasy, as the thought of a person getting on a flight and then getting off and leaving baggage was not a pleasant one given the current state of affairs. Finally, we reached the gate, and the woman sprinted to the doors and left. What followed was about thirty minutes of passenger interviews that tried to determine if she brought anything on board, where she was the entire time she was on the plane, and so forth. In the end, we were delayed three hours from our takeoff time, but eventually embarked toward sunny Acapulco. Thankfully, we arrived without a hitch, but I can say unequivocally that it was probably the longest length of time I have ever gone without thinking about Vs. System!

It’s Good to be Back

When I finally got back from Acapulco, I was ready to go into Vs. overdrive. I hadn’t been back in the states two hours before I was calling up Tim Batow and eagerly asking him if he had picked up some product for me at the Sneak Preview. Of course, Tim took care of me—we need to stick together, what with both of us recently drawing the ire of Michael Barnes. We met up at a local shop in Tulsa, where the storeowner said that he would have his Heralds product earlier than he thought. He also said he wanted to have a release party where players would each buy a box and play out of it for prizes. I was obviously down for some Sealed Pack play. My team faltered at Pro Circuit Indianapolis from a Sealed Pack perspective; only one member posted a winning record on Day 2 (we only had three who made the cut), so it was and still is important to us all to improve upon that showing. You can be utterly dominating in one format, but if you can’t compete in both, you won’t be playing come Day 3 . . . except maybe in a Pro Circuit Qualifier.

The storeowner said that the tournament would be in two days, and to come back and have a blast. I was so hyped. I tried to read everything I could, but there just wasn’t much strategy out. There was a lone article by recent $10K New York Top 8 finisher Doug Tice, which only covered his top ten cards from the Heralds team. I quickly looked over those cards and noticed one thing—he’d failed to include either of the Firelords in his top ten. I had heard stories of how game-breaking Firelord was, and was surprised not to see him there. I continued to pore over the card list, but didn’t have the time to do much else.

A Big Mess

The big day arrived, and I showed up at the store early, ready to tear into my product. I had never tried to build a deck out of just a box of cards, especially under a confined time frame. While there was not a maximum amount of time you could spend on deck construction, you had to have your deck ready by the start time of the tournament. I decided that the best route would be to open all the cards and separate them by team affiliations so that I could evaluate each team individually. I think this is the best way to approach building a Sealed deck, though some will also tell you that you should also separate by drops. I noticed that some piles were substantially larger than others—my Kree pile was very sizable, as well as Heralds and Doom. Inhumans was rather small in comparison to the rest.

I laid out the Kree cards and separated the characters by their recruit costs. I had a decent number of characters at each drop but was unfamiliar with the correct way to build this deck. The press mechanic seemed strong, but I was lacking some key plot twists in my mind. Specifically, aggressive cards like Live Kree . . . Or Die!. I didn’t like the fact that many of my early drops had below-average stats. I only received one Dr. Minerva, who I valued highly for sifting through the deck, and there were only two Worldships, which helps bounce your low guys to maintain your curve. While two copies might be strong in a thirty-card deck, it’s not enough in a sixty-card deck if you don’t have other options. I didn’t know the pool well enough, so I moved on to the next team.

I laid out my Heralds of Galactus cards and was very pleased with what I saw. I had a strong curve that consisted of several copies of Morg and Silver Surfer. The concept of powering-up has always appealed to me, though I obviously abandoned that feeling at Pro Circuit Indy. Given the small number of DEF pumps I saw, I felt that having multiple power-ups could come in handy. The main reason why I started here, though, was the strong characters I pulled; I had two copies of Morg, Corrupt Destroyer, two of each version of Firelord, and two Kindred Spirits. With strong 3-, 4-, and 6-drops, I immediately moved to the next team to see what fit.

Inhumans was next, as Tim Batow mentioned to me that he thought they teamed well with Heralds. I could see the synergy, but lacked the ability to recur cosmic counters on my characters, so the cosmic—surge cards didn’t interest me. I likely dismissed this team too quickly, but I didn’t want to spend forever building the deck and was anxious to look at some of my Doom cards.

As I laid the Doom cards out into drops, I noticed immediately that they seemed to fill out the places in my curve that needed a little more meat. I really only added a couple cards from Doom (I planned to go mainly mono-Heralds), but I felt that the Doom cards I added were vastly important to my success.

The Deck!

Here is the deck I ended up with:

Characters:

2 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
1 Lancer
2 Destroyer, Soulless Juggernaut
2 Morg, Slayer
2 Iron Man, Illuminati
2 Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival
2 Firelord, Pyreus Kril
2 Human Torch, The Invisible Man
2 Morg, Corrupt Destroyer
2 Divinity, Vampiric General
3 Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector
1 Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair
2 Dr. Doom, Sorcerous Savant
2 Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
2 Morg, Harbinger of Extinction
1 Galactus, The Maker
1 Dr. Doom, Latverian Monarch

Plot Twists:

1 Creation of a Herald
1 Mask of Doom
1 Pacification
2 Elemental Battle
2 Barbaric Brawl
2 The Devil We Know
2 Kindred Spirits
2 Relentless Onslaught
2 The Herald Ordeal
2 The Power Cosmic Unleashed
3 Sworn Enemies
2 Interstellar Offensive
2 Cosmic Order

Locations:

2 The Kyln
2 Worldeater Apparatus

Equipment:

1 Ultimate Nullifier

The deck ended up being good enough to get me to the finals against Tim Batow, where I lost to his Skrull/Kree off-curve craziness. Now that I’ve seen how the deck performed, I can address some MVPs and some cards that should not have been included.

MVPs

• Divinity, Vampiric General: This card was unbelievable, and the ability to KO any character was great. At first, I was put off by the cost of KO’ing a resource or a Doom character, as I feared I would not be able to fulfill it. But after playing with the deck and against others, I realized that the alternate recruit cost characters are great for this, as is the 0-cost Haywire, Suicidal Lover (if you can get a Team-Up online).
• Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector: His ability to clean up the 4-drops was too good. Add in the fact that I had three copies of this card and two more of the 2-drop version, and there were a couple instances where I could bounce attacks with a power-up and an Elemental Battle.
• Morg, Corrupt Destroyer: I guess I just like bouncing things. This card was great, as it was generally the target for the two copies of The Power Cosmic Unleashed that I was playing. Even without a cosmic counter, his 9 ATK was sufficient to stun 5-drops, and accomplished what I wanted from him and more.

Questionable Calls

• Pacification: This card was initially included to help bring back Morg, Corrupt Destroyer’s counter. However, I realized that its application was rather narrow in my deck. Other than Morg, I didn’t have many cosmic characters whose cosmic power was of great import; the Doom characters I played didn’t focus on cosmic, either. Lastly, the deck I built was not really suited to having more cards in hand than my opponent. Bouncing characters with Morg and Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector actually worked against Pacification. I honestly think this is a good card, but it needs a very specific deck (which mine was not) to support its benefit fully.
• Cosmic Order: I’m still up in the air on this card. In one game, where my opponent missed his 2-drop and I hit my curve from turn 2 on, this card was backbreaking. I was always able to KO my lowest cost character to get his biggest. I only got this little lock off twice, though, and often looked with despair into my row, lamenting for other cards with better abilities.
• Ultimate Nullifier: This card is definitely strong. I honestly think I may have misplayed it during my matches; I often failed to recruit it because I was afraid that the character I put it on would be KO’d or bounced without getting any benefit out of the equipment. I know you can’t play this game trying to play it safe, and the card did save my 6-drop from a random KO/bounce effect in one game (I forget which, though I think it might have been The Kyln). In a thirty-card deck, though, I think this card’s utility goes up because the number of plot twists an opponent can throw away to make you pop the Nullifier is much lower.

In the End

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at deckbuilding for a fun tournament, and my rundown of the cards that I found to be excellent (and not so good. . . ) in Sealed Pack play. In this format, the ability to bounce characters and control your opponent’s board seems to be the way to the winner’s circle, whether you’re laying a million attackers with Kree rush or restricting the board with a strategy like the one I tried to employ. Regardless, I leave you this week with the hope that this article gave you a little insight into the thought process of an individual who didn’t know what he was doing. I am sure that as we approach the next Pro Circuit, I will eventually tackle the Heralds of Galactus format again, and we will see how much I learned and if I can truly call myself a “noob.” Until next time!

Shane Wiggans, one of the nicest guys with a tattoo sleeve, has found varying success on the Pro Circuit and is a member of Team Alternate Win Condition. If you have any questions or comments for him, feel free to say hey at any event or email him at piercedlawyer@yahoo.com!