When I put out the call for Sealed pools from the Sneak Preview, Tony Matthews from Auckland was the first to reply. He emailed me with two separate pools! Forever grateful, I am spending the next two weeks breaking down his efforts. Tony wasn’t happy with his pools overall, but I think they are quite good. Read below for the first one and see if you agree with me.

Heralds of Galactus:

Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth
Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
Firelord, Pyreus Kril
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Soul Searcher
Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Harbringer of Death
Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
The Fallen One, The Forgotten
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation
Tyrant, The Original Herald

The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Worldeater Apparatus
Elemental Converters
Absorba Shield

Despite the lack of 4- and 7-drops, this is a pretty good Heralds line-up. The holes in the curve make it a little clunky, but it is definitely good to look at your first team and see at least eight playable characters. The real power in this team comes from its excellent support. Absorba Shield is an amazing Sealed card, no question. I didn't have enough experience with the set when I reviewed Shaun Hayward’s Sealed pool, and I've recently come around on Worldeater Apparatus. Shaun’s argument that the potential endurance gain can be enough to win you a close game is something I know I agree with. Elemental Converters is a great Sealed card because it allows you to see a lot of your deck, meaning that not only is your deck more consistent, it is also more consistently powerful. The Power Cosmic Unleashed is also an excellent trick in Sealed play, where one character and its ability can dominate several turns. At this stage, it is comforting to know we have a decent curve line-up behind us if we can find other teams with acceptable 4-drops and 7-drops.

Kree:

Nenora, Skrull Usurper
Clumsy Foulup, Puppet Dictator
Admiral Galen Kor, Lunatic Legion
Ultimus, Starforce
2 Shatterax, Starforce
Supremor, Starforce

Hala
The Infamous Seven

Live Kree . . . or Die!

There really isn’t much to say here. We do have excellent non-character cards again, and at worst we can play Live Kree… or Die! in any deck. I am not normally a fan of the card in a non-Kree deck, but we will have to wait and see how strong the rest of our pool is. Nenora is also a character I am prepared to play in any deck, particularly if we don’t have many team-ups.

Doom:

Moloids, Army
Elite Doom Guards, Army
Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival
Iron Man, Illuminati
Invisible Woman, Baroness von Doom
Dr. Doom, Sorcerous Savant
Dorma, Atlantean General

Doom Needs Only Doom
Master of Puppets
Arsenal of Doom

Armies of Doom

Again, this is a fairly weak line-up. The Dr. Dooms are excellent characters, even good enough to play on their own, but the rest of team doesn’t give us much to work with. All we are getting is a sporadic mix of mediocre characters. Iron Man and Invisible Woman are cards that are only really good when their team affiliation matters. The plot twist support would have been okay if we had more bulk in the team; Armies of Doom and Doom Needs Only Doom are both quite good in a deck that contains a lot of Doom. It's too bad we don’t have more 4- and 5-drops, because this team could almost make the cut.

Inhumans:

Ahura, Heir to Attilan
Alpha Primitives, Army
San, The Alienated One
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Human Torch, Sparky
Thing, Rockhead
Nahrees, The Negative One
Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
Mr. Fantastic, Illuminati
Karnak, The Shatterer
Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans
Invisible Woman, Flame On!

The Substructure
Waking the Ancestors
Extended Family, Team-Up

First off, the non-character cards do not really seem that good. Fortunately, however, the character selection runs very deep. There are plenty of characters, and they fit at many different points on the curve. Karnak is a certifiable bomb when you have Extended Family in the deck, and I am a huge fan of Jolen as well. At this stage, Inhumans looks like a good fit for the Heralds we already have.

Infinity Watch:

Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem
Thanos, Protector of the Reality Gem
Adam Warlock, Protector of the Soul Gem

Skrull:

Titannus, Alien Conqueror

Other:

Dr. Strange, Illuminati

While I don’t really like Dr. Strange or Thanos (though he is better than he looks), I do like both Moondragon and Adam Warlock. Both characters have powerful effects that take a little effort to make worthwhile, but can still turn games on their heads. If I can find the space, I'd like to play them both.

Equipment:

Power Gem, Infinity Gem
Universal Weapon
The Infinity Gauntlet

Plot Twists:

Interstellar Offensive
Sworn Enemies
Starforce Strike
2 The Uni-Power
For the Glory of Doom!, Team-Up
The Devil We Know
The Rapture

Locations:

The Kyln
Ego the Living Planet
Negative Zone, Shadow Dimension

Tony’s non-character selection is very good. Not only is it powerful, it is also flexible. We get ATK pumps for attackers and defenders, ways to attack the hidden area, and a pseudo-KO effect in The Kyln. Overall, I think this pool is looking quite good, so I'll get to work.

As I was saying last week, I now look for a very basic curve at first. As a recap, this tends to be three 2-drops, four 3-drops, three 4-drops, two 5-drops, and two 6-drops. Similar to last week, the best option seems to be an Inhumans/Heralds combination. Not only are the Doom and Kree teams weak by comparison, but we also have Extended Family and The Power Cosmic Unleashed again—and this time we have even better targets for them.

The acceptable characters for your basic curve are:

San, The Alienated One
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage

Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
Firelord, Pyreus Kril
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Soul Searcher
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Human Torch, Sparky

Thing, Rockhead
Nahrees, The Negative One
Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Harbringer of Death
Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
Mr. Fantastic, Illuminati
Karnak, The Shatterer
Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans
Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
The Fallen One, The Forgotten
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation

We are missing a 4-drop and we have a glut of 5- and 6-drops. Fortunately, Moondragon is a fantastic 4-drop for this deck; not only are we going to have ways of replacing cosmic counters, we also have a few options for card-drawing. Nothing from Kree or Doom does anything better for our deck.

Although we will probably end up playing more than two 5-drops, for the moment we should narrow it down. Karnak is a definite, though the second is a little harder to place. Air-Walker gives us some huge DEF but below average ATK. Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Harbinger of Death is more card-drawing, but we have the 3-drop Frankie, too (and will likely play her). I am a big fan of Black Bolt, because with flight, range, and his great leader text, he can be very annoying to our opponent in Sealed. Mr. Fantastic is not so great in our deck because it doesn’t seem like having a face-up resource row is going to be that easy to pull off. Considering all of these characters have 9 ATK or worse, I think it's a contest between Air-Walker and Black Bolt. Right now, Black Bolt is a safer choice, but if we end up with several “plus to ATK while defending” pumps, Air-Walker could be a great choice.

We do have to cull two of the 6-drops we have as well. I feel that this is a case of simply opting for raw power. Firelord has the best text for breaking open the game of all the 6-drops. (We have another Firelord in our deck, but he’s a 3-drop and more likely to be used as a power-up than KO’d for uniqueness.) Medusa is a little slow for my tastes. The Fallen One is a card that gives a lot of synergy to our cosmic-based deck, but I feel that Destroyer is better when we have access to The Power Cosmic Unleashed and Extended Family. A potential 15 ATK / 15 DEF is too good to pass up.

This would put our base deck at:

San, The Alienated One
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage

Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
Firelord, Pyreus Kril
Frankie Raye ◊  Nova, Soul Searcher
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Human Torch, Sparky

Thing, Rockhead
Nahrees, The Negative One
Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem
Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
Karnak, The Shatterer
Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation

Before we go any further we should sort out the non-character cards. I have already referenced the cosmic-enabling cards enough to start organising the support for our basic skeleton. There are a lot of potential cards to choose from:

Power Gem, Infinity Gem

The Kyln
Ego the Living Planet
Negative Zone, Shadow Dimension

The Substructure
Worldeater Apparatus
Elemental Converters

Interstellar Offensive
Sworn Enemies
Starforce Strike
2 The Uni-Power
For the Glory of Doom!, Team-Up
The Devil We Know
The Rapture
The Substructure
Waking the Ancestors
Extended Family, Team-Up
The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Absorba Shield

Live Kree . . . or Die!

There is so much quality in the pool that we should cut the situational cards straight away. The Rapture, The Substructure, Ego the Living Planet and Waking the Ancestors are all a bit weak in my opinion. We only need one way to attack the hidden area, and I personally prefer the flexibility of The Uni-Power. Sealed play seems to have fewer concealed characters than the more focused world of Draft, so Negative Zone, Shadow Dimension feels like overkill when there are better alternatives. This gives us the following thirteen options:

The Kyln
Worldeater Apparatus
Elemental Converters

Interstellar Offensive
Sworn Enemies
Starforce Strike
The Uni-Power

For the Glory of Doom!, Team-Up
The Devil We Know
Extended Family, Team-Up
The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Absorba Shield

Live Kree . . . or Die!

There seems to be a good mix of offensive and defensive tricks in there, so we can afford to play low ATK characters like Air-Walker if they offer something else we want the deck to have. We should probably try and add some more characters before making the final cuts.

Our deck doesn’t look particularly fast at the moment, so we should be prepared for turn 7. We have Invisible Woman, Flame On! in-team already, so she should make the cut. Invisible Woman is a card I quite like, with her small DEF overshadowed by her excellent text. It is much more important to have a 7-drop that is relevant on both attack and defense than one with a slight weakness when defending. If our 6-drops can keep their cosmic counters (or get them and keep them), this might not be a weakness at all.

I would like an additional 7-drop, and again I would go to Adam Warlock in this deck. Titannus could be up for consideration, but without more team-ups we wouldn’t tap his full potential. Overall, I think that Adam has the most powerful text and brings a serviceable body. You want to ensure that you always have 6-drops with cosmic before taking the plunge on this guy, but once you do he is definitely good.

The bottom end of the curve isn’t that strong at the moment, but there do seem to be a couple of worthwhile additions. The “free” 1-drop is one of my favorite aspects of this format. Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth allows us to dig deep into our deck while helping out cards like The Kyln and Moondragon. Nenora is just an all-around great card that teams everyone up and adds 2 ATK to your offense. Both of these characters feel like automatic inclusions to the deck.

This leaves the deck looking like this:

Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth

Nenora, Skrull Usurper

San, The Alienated One
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage

Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
Firelord, Pyreus Kril
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Soul Searcher
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Human Torch, Sparky

Thing, Rockhead
Nahrees, The Negative One
Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem
Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
Karnak, The Shatterer
Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation
Invisible Woman, Flame On!

Adam Warlock, Protector of the Soul Gem

Power Gem, Infinity Gem

The Kyln
Worldeater Apparatus
Elemental Converters

Interstellar Offensive
Sworn Enemies
Starforce Strike
The Uni-Power

For the Glory of Doom!, Team-Up
The Devil We Know
Extended Family, Team-Up
The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Absorba Shield

Live Kree . . . or Die!

We have too many cards right now, so we need to cut something. Personally, I think we have enough combat modifiers to cut Live Kree . . .  or Die!, which is just an overpriced trick in our deck. The Kyln goes next; even though I just said free characters are good for it, it is probably the worst card left in the deck. That leaves us with a 30 card deck.

I feel that with Absorba Shield, Elemental Converters, and the 1-drop Frankie Raye, we’re a tad short on 5-drops and should add another one to the mix. Unfortunately, I don’t want to cut anything. Clearly, the 5-drop we need to get into the mix is Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair. Not only do we have a lot of combat pumps, but we also need late-game Heralds characters more than anything else.

After deliberation, the best card to drop is Worldeater Apparatus. I seem to be going back and forth on how good this card is, but in this deck it just doesn’t seem to fit as well as a lot of the other cards. All of our 4- and 5-drops at this point are non-Heralds anyway, so it seems as though this is the card that will be the least useful most often. Feel free to keep this card if you are sure that it is always worth it, but I just don’t think it would be working as hard as Air-Walker would be in this deck.

This would make my final decklist:

Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth

Nenora, Skrull Usurper

San, The Alienated One
Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage

Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
Firelord, Pyreus Kril
Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Soul Searcher
Jolen, The Treacherous One
Human Torch, Sparky

Thing, Rockhead
Nahrees, The Negative One
Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem
Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
Karnak, The Shatterer
Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair
Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation
Invisible Woman, Flame On!

Adam Warlock, Protector of the Soul Gem

Power Gem, Infinity Gem

Elemental Converters

Interstellar Offensive
Sworn Enemies
Starforce Strike
The Uni-Power

For the Glory of Doom!, Team-Up
The Devil We Know
Extended Family, Team-Up
The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Absorba Shield

This deck seemed to turn out alright in the end. A lot of raw power combined with some pretty obvious synergies is definitely the right mix for success. Still, there is a lesson to be learned here: Even when you get fantastic cards, you still have to know which cards to cut in the end. You can’t just play all of the good ones.

Alex Brown has spent a large part of the last two years traveling the world playing Vs. System. With several high finishes, a couple of near misses, and some embarrassing failures at the elite level, Alex can lay claim to being one of the most internationally exposed Vs. players in the world. He now writes about Vs. for various websites, sharing his experiences in the hope that others may derive as much enjoyment from the game as he does.