After Heralds of Galactus was released, the very first tournament to introduce the set to the public was $10K New York. Yoel “Chocolate Thunder” Izsak plowed through the competition to take home the trophy in that one. Today, $10K Orlando is the inaugural premier event for the new Legion of Super Heroes set. Yoel has flown in from Maryland to compete, doubtless looking for a repeat performance. As we sat down for deck registration, I asked Yoel what he thought of how the new set played in Sealed Pack. “Well, I’ve built a few Sealed Packs,” said Yoel. “I’ve found that there aren’t that many individually powerful cards for Sealed. The teams are designed to work well within themselves, so your on-team cards will be good, and your off-team cards will often be terrible.”
A few minutes after the slower players had completed registration, decks were handed back out. Yoel tore into his card pool. He looked through what he had, verifying what was registered and pulling out some choice cards in the process. “This guy is pretty good . . . 7 ATK / 7 DEF, and your opponent discards a card,” he said, indicating Lightning Lord. “And this is the one KO effect,” he said as he pointed out Death of a Legionnaire. Yoel began to lay out all of his cards according to team affiliation. “This looks like the absolute nut low.”
As Yoel continued to lay out his cards, shaking his head, he pointed out some of the less useful cards he was stuck with. Rose Wilson ◊ The Ravager, Titans Tomorrow East: “This guy is great for Sealed Pack . . . yeah, I’m kidding. 2 ATK / 3 DEF for 3? C’mon.” Validus: “Somehow I only have three 5-drops in my entire card pool, and one of them is one of these unplayable guys that recover your opponent’s characters.” Yoel took a closer look at his Future Foes and noticed that he had a Tharok and Mano, as well. “Great. I have the curve.” Away they all went into the unplayable pile. “I also only have one 7-drop in my entire card pool. I don’t know what it is with these print runs.”
After Yoel’s cards were pared down to the playables, he had a few clear conclusions drawn and a few decisions yet to make. He had some excellent Legionnaires effects, including a Science Police Central, but only five Legionnaires characters in total—all with a cost of 3 or less. The Legionnaires were removed from consideration. That left three teams—Teen Titans, Darkseid’s Elite, and Future Foes. He had half-decent curves in both Titans and Darkseid, but nothing in the way of impressive plot twists or locations. Future Foes, on the other hand, was a little light in the character department with three of the Fatal Five in the unplayable pile, but had the most powerful effects in the form of cards like Chain Lightning. It was a tough decision, but in the end, Yoel went with Titans/Darkseid. He splashed two Lightning Lords and one Chain Lightning from the Future Foes end of things, and then went about the task of deciding on his other non-character cards.
“A lot of people think this card is really good,” he said, handing me a United Planets HQ. “I think it’s pretty terrible, though. If you lose your only guy of a certain affiliation early, then you can’t play your team-stamped plot twists late game.” Next, he pointed out 31st Century Metropolis. “This, on the other hand, is awesome.” Yoel finally got the deck to look something like the way he wanted it to be, but he was still unhappy. He was forced to play some Legionnaires 2-drops just to fill holes in his curve. In addition, he had only two combat pumps, and small ones at that. His deck was very heavy on characters. “One thing I don’t particularly like about this set in Sealed is that I’m going back to playing twenty characters. I was getting used to playing seventeen or eighteen, and I liked it.” With only four minutes left on the clock for deck construction, Yoel finally finished things up. Still shaking his head, he walked off to check the pairings for the first round.