Yesterday I played in a Sealed Pack PCQ, and after one of my matches, I felt a looming presence over my shoulder judging my admittedly shoddy play. That presence was none other than noted pants hater Adam Prosak, in town for a little gaming and familial visitation. “Wow,” he said. “Your deck could have been pretty good.”
Adam noted that I was not playing Empire of Tears to go along with some strong Emerald Enemies characters. “That card is nuts. There’s a draft archetype around Empire of Tears and aggressive plot twists where you just crush your opponents on the early drops and trade up the curve unless you want to hit your huge men at the back end. Sometimes I won’t even play 7-drops in that deck because the games never get there.” I noted that I had a Hal Jordan ◊ Spectre, Mortal Avatar that I wanted to play, and he said, “That’s okay; you just run more weenies that way and KO your first two drops to flip it. You even have team-ups, so your men would be insane. Do you know how good Green Lanterns are when they get +2 ATK/+2 DEF?”
I checked in with Adam while he was building his deck this morning and he told me, “I almost have it. In Sealed. You never have it in Sealed, but I’m really close.”
“The highlights of my deck are that I have this Constructed thing going on with Dr. Light, Master of Holograms, G’Nort, Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern of the UniverseEmerald Dawn, and Sweeping Up. My deck would be ridiculous if I had a Dead-Eye, because I have two Cosmic Conflicts and a lot of hidden characters, but the rest my pumps are so good that I didn’t want a situational one or two, even if they are really good when you get to use them. It’s not like I was going to cut Locked in Combat, Nero Unleashed, Sweeping Up, Emerald Twilight, Thunderous Onslaught, or No Man Escapes the Manhunters for them.”
“I only two 5’s in this deck, but I have a lot of cards that can help me out. I can boost Dr. Polaris, I can play off-curve . . . I’m probably playing too many 1-drops, but I always want to flip Empire of Tears. This deck would be insanely good with a team-up, but I didn’t get one, and I’m playing the only two 6-drops (Manhunter Lantern ◊ Power Ring Thief) and the 7-drop (Highmaster, Supreme Leader) that I opened. We’ll see how it goes.”