“We got a gooder.” Those were the words Nick Little said to me as I sat down to talk to him about his sealed deck. “I only have three offensive pump spells. I’ve played plenty of decks with not enough pumps—you just know ahead of time that you have to attack right and your plot twists can’t bail you out.” Starting off a Sealed Pack build with Arisia and G’nort in the one-drop slot seems like a good idea, as it opens you up to all sorts of shenanigans with off-curve Green Lantern tricks, particularly when you have Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern of the Universe to boot. Little also had Kilowog and Alan Scott at the other end of the scale, and two team-ups to help make sure Kilowog’s recruit cost can be paid.
Nick’s card pool also contained a host of Manhunters, but those went unplayed in favor of a handful of Emerald Enemies (Dr. Ub’x, Major Disaster, Krona, and Remoni-Notra ◊ Star Sapphire, Obsessed Warrior Princess) and Anti-Matter (Dead-Eye and Fiero) characters. In fact, having seen a lot of Sealed Pack builds in New York and here, I’ve noticed that the Manhunters go largely unloved when it comes to players’ playable piles.
“I have no bombs, but a good, consistent deck,” said Little as he pondered the cuts from his pile. There were still 37 cards he was considering. “I don’t know if Legion has ever lost me a game, but he actively hinders winning sometimes; I don’t think he’ll make the final deck here.” Little then whittled Sonar and Weaponers of Qward from his stack, as well. “I really like Empire of Tears, but I never get to play it.” The last cut for Nick’s deck was between Coast City and Empire of Tears, and the Coast made the cut because Nick’s “little guys are really good, and I just need to keep them on the board.”
Nick’s curve of characters went like this:
1-drops: 2
2-drops: 4
3-drops: 4
4-drops: 4
5-drops: 3
6-drops: 2
7-drops: 2
“I never seem to find space for Rings in these decks, either . . . oh well, I’ll just have to bash people with men in this deck and hope the next one has some better plot twists.”