Nick Little made the Top 8 of the very first Pro Circuit Indy two years ago. Karl Horn won Pro Circuit LA last fall, and Dair Grant placed in the Top 8 of $10K Los Angeles that same weekend. In short, this team isn’t lacking any experience, and they look to be in good position to make Day 2 with a record of 4-1 going into the second Sealed Pool of the day.
The first problem that Nick Little noticed with their pool was the lack of 2-drops, much the same as what happened to Team Falling Down in the first deck construction feature. Dair immediately pointed out that there was no chance of a deck being mono-team because of the lack of 2- and 3-drops in several teams.
They began moving over the possible combinations, looking at the curves and trying to compliment the holes in various teams. The first combination they looked at was CMVU, mainly due to Checkmate’s hole at 2 and Villains United having more depth. This also brought the opportunity to play Ahmed Samsarra along with The Science Spire, a combo that wins in Constructed play and is even more brutally efficient in Sealed Pack. This was short lived, though, as they realized that Villains’ plot twists and Checkmate’s locations were too good to use in just one deck.
With CMVU scrapped, Dair immediately brought up the possibility of using the Secret Six characters to fill in the holes at their 4-drop slot and using Scandal to compliment Huntress, Reluctant Queen at 6. This led to a problem with running three Kings in a deck with no way to get them out of trouble. They added back a Traitor to the Cause as a means to fix the problem, but Karl still seemed dissatisfied that he’d have to run two Retrieval Protocol ◊ OMAC Robots to fill in the lack of 2-drops. It was becoming quite clear that his deck was going to be the weakest of the three.
The next deck that they mulled over was the JSA identity engine, featuring cards like Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero; Kendra Saunders ◊ Hawkgirl; and A Moment of Crisis to create huge power-ups—something that people who have been following this weekend’s events will know is a strong effect. With a pair of Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Doubles, and The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero, his curve almost built itself. Dair was clearly going to be the one playing the identity deck, which left only Nick to take the last deck that was coming together, Shadowpact and Villains United.
With the help of cards like Nightmaster, Jim Rook, Nick was hoping to cash in on the combination with No Mercy and other Villains cards that return cards for powerful effects. Nick had two copies of No Mercy and a Systematic Torture, which made him wonder if he should be running the lone copy of Watch the Birdie! to attack into Ahmed, stun him, and then KO the King for the easy win. He decided instead to run Relentless Pursuit, wanting the +1 ATK. Nick said that he would be playing almost the same deck he played with the last pool they had—a deck that aimed to play Zatanna, Showstopper on turn 6 followed by Shazam on turn 7 with the initiative.
The team finished the construction pretty unsatisfied with their card pool, settling on the best decks they thought were possible. But they were underpowered overall. They were also one card short of a set of Fate Artifacts, one of the defining features of the format. Karl commented that he thought the Fate Artifacts were a big problem with the format because Fate decks (anything containing Amulet of Nabu, Helm of Nabu, Cloak of Nabu, and Dr. Fate’s Tower) are almost impossible to beat in Sealed. As Nick pointed out, though, this team is probably one of the more experienced in the tournament, so if anyone can pull out another two wins to secure a Day 2 birth, it’s probably them.