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2 Chay-Ara, Hawkgirl, Eternal Companion

Huntress, Earth 2

The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero

Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero

2 Superman, Earth 2

Living Legacy

Advance Warning

Shadowpact

Nightmaster, Demon Slayer

2 Ibis, Prince Amentep

Blue Devil, Big Blue

The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel

2 The Oblivion Bar

Abjuration

Checkmate

2 Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw

Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorn

Arthur Kendrick, Knight

Harry Stein, King in Check

Adrian Chase ◊ Vigilante, Street Justice

Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot, Army

Huntress, Reluctant Queen

Secret Checkmate HQ

Laser Watch

Villains United

Alexander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger

Dr. Polaris, Force of Nature

Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee, Mistress of the Hive

2 Black Adam, Teth-Adam

Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double

The Calculator, Crime Broker

Black Adam, Lord of Kahndaq

Secret Six

2 Ragdoll, Resilient Rogue

Scandal, Savage Spawn

House of Secrets

Legacy/Unaffiliated

Lois Lane, Earth 2

Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity

Kilowog, Drill Sergeant

Unfortunately, our JSA seems just a little too scant to run as a main team. is incredible, and Kate Spencer ◊ Manhunter, Fearless Renegade is an early favorite of mine, but overall the pickings are slim. We might be able to hold out for an off-curve deck, which, although unlikely in Sealed Pack, has several candidates in Atom Smasher, Al Rothstein; two copies of Chay-Ara ◊ Hawkgirl, Eternal Companion; the aforementioned Kate Spencer; and Ted Grant ◊ Wildcat, Golden Age Pugilist. Otherwise, cards like Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero and Superman, Earth 2 are just not that great without a lot of support. They are fine as filler, and there is a neat combo between Supes and Huntress, Earth 2, but it’s not much. Living Legacy is mediocre, and The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero isn’t much more than a glorified trick.

Similarly, our Shadowpact pool seems especially awkward. Many of the Shadowpact cards are really only good in dedicated, almost mono, builds. Ibis, Prince Amentep and The Oblivion Bar fall into this category for me. It is too bad that we have doubles of both. I don’t really think Nightmaster, Demon Slayer is worth either his status as a free 9 ATK / 9 DEF for 20 endurance or as a vanilla 9 ATK / 9 DEF for 5 resource points. Abjuration is good but misses out due to a lack of numbers—the Blue Devils and The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel are not much of a team by themselves. If we are looking to an off-curve build, perhaps doubles of the 1-drop Nightmaster, Jim Rook could encourage us a little, but so far, things are looking pretty grim.

Looking to Checkmate for inspiration, we perhaps find a glimmer of hope. We have an acceptable amount of 2- and 3-drops and a decent curve for the rest of the game. Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot, Army is a great Sealed Pack card, and Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw is also very good. Unfortunately, while I am a big fan of Harry Stein in Draft, he is awful in Sealed. I could play him in a pinch, but he sort of dictates that you win very quickly. With the plot twist support we have, we can jettison any ideas of that. With a lone Secret Checkmate HQ in Checkmate, we are going to need a lot from Villains United to get a deck that is remotely serviceable.

Villains United seems to be the deepest of our major affiliations at first glance. We have a non-character selection that is definitely above average with Baddest of the Bad, Grand Gesture, and No Mercy. We have double Black Adam, Teth-Adam, who is very good. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, we don’t really have much of a curve at all. Like all of the other teams, we are distinctly lacking in 4-drops. We only have a single 2-drop, and our 3-drops are mediocre Sealed cards. I don’t really like The Calculator, Crime Broker as a finisher because his concealed status is a huge liability, and Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double doesn’t have enough support.

Going into the Secret Six and leftover cards, we don’t really have much of a deck. Fortunately, if we still want to take the curve route, we have double Ragdoll, Resilient Rogue to save our 4-drop problem. That guy is one of the best 4-drops in the set for Sealed Pack. Mordru, Dark Lord; Kilowog, Drill Sergeant; and Scandal, Savage Spawn are all playable if need be. Our equipment is pretty good, but the plot twists aren’t very much at all. Because this pool seems exceptionally mediocre to me, I am thinking of trying something radically off-curve with Thanagarian Invasion, Death from Above, and the equipment to help me out.

I tend to be pretty rigid with what sort of curve I think works for various strategies. While I advocate a 0-4-4-4-3-2-2 (on turns 1-7) curve for normal Sealed situations, this pool clearly demands that I try to do something a little different. With recent sets becoming better and better for Draft, I almost default to an off-curve strategy to get an edge on my opponents. Superficially, I stick to a 6-6-3-2-2-1-0 (on turns 1-7) curve or thereabouts. Still, I have certain requirements for those characters.

First, unless possessed of some other combat-relevant ability, all the 1-drops I play must have 2 or more ATK. They are in the deck to attack, so there must be a reasonable chance that they will stun an opposing 2-drop (hence why I also love 3 DEF 2-drops when playing curve). The essence of off-curve is being able to attack up the curve. Second, my 2-drops must have 3 or more ATK or some sort of other combat-relevant ability. This is again because you need all the help you can get when going up the curve. Many 3-drops have 5 DEF. A 2-drop with less than 2 ATK will need help from a first-pick quality card even to have a chance of stunning that sort of character. Third, the deck needs at least two team-ups to ensure that I can team attack whenever I want. Finally, there needs to be a sufficient number of pumps that provide +2 or greater. I usually want three or four, or a number greater than that to provide a cumulative effect of +2 or more three or four times. As you can see, this sort of deck can be exceptionally rare in Sealed. Maybe I just have high standards.

So, if we look to the cards that can fulfill the sort of standards I require, we come up with the following:

1-drops

2 Chay-Ara ◊ Hawkgirl, Eternal Companion

Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity

2-drops

Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne

Team-Ups

Rann

Pumps

There does seem to be a solid basis for a deck here, but there are a few causes for concern. While there are several solid 1-drops, there aren’t many good 2-drops. On top of this, Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne has loyalty—reveal, so we would need about seven Checkmate characters to be moderately comfortable with that. Our team-up situation is the bare minimum, but considering that we are cutting guys from so many teams, we probably need another team-up to take this deck into battle. Fortunately, we have a lot of pumps for this format, so there is probably room to try to make a playable build from this. I know that I talk a lot about curve and things like that, but you should see those things as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. One point of practicing the rules is to learn when they should be broken.

In trying to make a better build of this pool, I think we want to cover the 2-drop spot first. We have an abundance of quality 1-drops, but we also have a teaming-up problem. We are going to need an excess of 1-drops to cover the lack of an extra 2-drop (though a 2-drop would probably be our mulligan condition with this deck). We do have ongoing plot twists to use leftover resource points, inefficient as that may be. Additionally, equipment can go a long way if we fail to draw a 2-drop. With this in mind, I think we should drop Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity to take some of the pressure off the team attacks, and we should commit to playing all of the equipment and ongoing pumps. Clearly, we are going to need all of our 2-drops. Our plot twists will be necessary with our reasonably average character base, so I think we should commit to playing all of them except Epic Battle, which will probably be the most situational of them all.

2 Chay-Ara ◊ Hawkgirl, Eternal Companion

Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne

Rann

2 Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw

Amulet of Nabu

Laser Watch

This gives us a core of twenty-three cards to work with. To fill out the rest of the deck, we are going to look at our mid- and late-game cards. Typically, we want to play characters that have efficient ATK-to-cost ratios, like 5+ ATK 3-drops, 8+ ATK 4-drops, and so forth. Concealed is a huge plus for late drops, as we need as much firepower for the victory turn as possible. Finally, we will defer to characters that can also provide an extra benefit to our early game if they are available.

As a postscript, we have an extra incentive to support our 2-drop Black Thorn with Checkmate characters.

The characters who fit the bill are:

3-drops

Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee, Mistress of the Hive

Adrian Chase ◊ Vigilante, Street Justice

Huntress, Earth 2

4-drops

Kilowog, Drill Sergeant

Harry Stein, King in Check

Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero

5-drops

Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot, Army

Mordru, Dark Lord

2 Black Adam, Teth-Adam

Blue Devil, Big Blue

6-drops

Scandal, Savage Spawn

Huntress, Reluctant Queen

2 Superman, Earth 2

With our preference for Checkmate characters, characters with concealed, and characters with high ATK values, it is pretty easy to include both copies of Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw and Adrian Chase ◊ Vigilante, Street Justice. Although it might seem like we are doing a lot for the sake of the loyalty on one card, it’s important to remember not only that the loyalty is crucial to our early game, but also that we lose nothing with Checkmate characters in this regard. As we get to the later drops, flight becomes more important than concealed because we won’t need characters to stick around so much as be efficient in combat. For that reason, I think Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot, Army is an easy choice, as he is also Checkmate and definitely no worse than the other candidates.

Getting into the harder choices, I think the offensive potential of Ted Grant ◊ Wildcat, Golden Age Pugilist overshadows the concealed status of Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee, Mistress of the Hive for the final 3-drop spot. On top of this, I would like to include a single 6-drop for a few more options. The candidates are Huntress, Reluctant Queen and Superman, Earth 2. Flight is probably better, but there is an argument for greater Checkmate representation. I will edge it to Superman for now, but if we don’t get another Checkmate character for the final slot, Huntress might just squeeze in.

For the final slot, I would much prefer an extra 4-drop over a 5-drop. Often I prefer two of each, but I am very happy with the other slots, so I’ll stick to filling out the lower curve first. Hawkman seems like the best guy for the job, as there are a few power-ups lying around and he combines 8 ATK with flight. This could suggest that Blue Devil, Big Blue make the cut instead of Annihilation Protocol, which goes to show you how hard it is to get an entirely correct build. Alternatively, we may have to go back to Huntress, Reluctant Queen to up our Checkmate quotient.

With a nod to the above difficulties, this is the build I would most likely run:

Characters

2 Chay-Ara ◊ Hawkgirl, Eternal Companion

Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne

2 Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw

Adrian Chase ◊ Vigilante, Street Justice

Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero

Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot, Army

Superman, Earth 2

Plot Twists

Locations

Equipment

Amulet of Nabu

Laser Watch

Really, I just wasn’t feeling very adventurous that weekend, and I chickened out of playing that list at the last minute. I didn’t think my team-up situation was good enough, but looking over the deck now, it definitely seems impressive enough on paper. It is considerably difficult to embolden yourself to go against the grain and play an off-curve deck in Sealed Pack, and I just wasn’t brave enough in the end.

Instead, I went with a rather generic curve deck, thinking that I could just beat players with superior skill on the board. The deck I played looked like this:

Characters

Huntress, Earth 2

Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee, Mistress of the Hive

Ibis, Prince Amentep

2 Ragdoll, Resilient Rogue

Kilowog, Drill Sergeant

Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero

Blue Devil, Big Blue

2 Black Adam, Teth-Adam

Huntress, Reluctant Queen

Superman, Earth 2

Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double

The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel

Plot Twists