sealed

Whispers from the Maze pre-release weekend was a blast! I’ve laid out the decks I ended up playing at each of the three pre-releases I attended. I’ve also included the sealed pools themselves so that you can see if you would have built them differently! General observations After playing with the set in person, I’d add the following observations to the ones I made in my limited preview. Cheap reserve costs are scarce Many cards in the set cost 3 or more from reserve to balance around passive support abilities accumulating boosts....

Whispers from the Maze pre-releases begin today! I just finished prepping for my pre-release weekend, and I thought it would be worth sharing my first impressions of the limited format. Disclaimer: I haven’t played with the cards outside of a game each with the Axiom and Ordis demo decks on BGA. This is all purely my speculation. Check back next week to see what I got right and what I missed!...

This is the sealed deck I ended up with at a local post-release Trial by Frost sealed event. The pool First impressions: I have access to Sigismar & Wingspan, the strongest hero in limited, but there aren’t a ton of Ordis cards I’d be happy about playing: the Ordis Liaison (C)s and Rallying Call (C) are the only draws into the faction. I also have access to Kojo & Booda. They’re nearly as strong as Sigismar & Wingspan, but my Bravos offers many more desirable 2 and 3-drops....

This is the sealed deck from my third and final Trial by Frost pre-release. I finally managed to open a unique! The pool First impressions: My pool doesn’t have any of the top-tier Trial by Frost heroes: Sigismar & Wingspan, Kojo & Booda, or Fen & Crowbar I briefly considered Gulrang & Tocsin. Two copies of Flutter of Moths (C) and a Moth to a Flame (C) would be strong finishers, and two Sunisa, Dedicated Ensigns might be able to turn off defender if things line up right....

This was the sealed deck I played at the second Trial by Frost pre-release I attended. The pool First impressions: Kojo & Booda and Fen & Crowbar are two very strong options for heroes, which is fortunate because Bravos and Lyra are also my strongest factions. Bravos is very deep and offers a great aggressive curve with four copies of Fire Rabbit. Lyra is not as deep, but it has two copies each of three excellent characters: Snowball Commando (C), Nisse (C), and Nyala, Gifted Conjurer (C)....

This was the sealed deck I built for my first Trial by Frost pre-release. The pool First impressions: Fen & Crowbar are the generically strongest hero in my pool. Lyra is very light on playable characters, however, so I would need to support her with two other deep factions. Axiom is very deep. The quantity of strong 2 and 3-drops mean this is a faction I’m always including. The pool has four copies of The Nilam, Withered Tree across Axiom and Yzmir, and they synergize with each other....

Today’s weekly event at my LGS ended up being just me and one other person, so we decided to crack open some packs and play a few games of sealed as a send-off to Beyond the Gates. The pool Here are the first things I noticed about the pool I opened: Kojo & Booda are the strongest hero I have access to. Bravos offers a ton of strong 2 and 3-drops....

Over the holidays, I ran a private sealed event with five other players, each of whom had somewhere between zero and five prior games of Altered under their belt. All of them have experience with light/medium eurogames, but Altered is their first trading card game. As refreshingly simple as Altered’s core mechanics are, I knew deckbuilding would be a step up in complexity, so I did my best to prepare so that the event would run as smoothly as possible....

I recently participated in the 128-player sealed tournament held by Altered Aces over Discord. I didn’t make it out of the group stage, but I thought it would be worthwhile to review the games and how I approached my pool. The pool Here are the first things I noticed when I looked over my sealed pool: No Sigismar & Wingspan or Kojo & Booda, but I did have Teija & Nauraa All three heroes are generically strong, though Sigismar & Wingspan are in a class of their own since their token threatens to win an expedition by itself if not contested....

It’s not every day you pull two Robin Hoods alongside three other solid bureaucrats in a sealed pool. I’m going to try not to play a ton of Waru & Mack in constructed, so I figured this might be my best chance to test them out! Uniques My rating system Ganesha - 3/7 While the cost of a card from your hand limits some of the more fun combos you can achieve with Mechanical Training (F), Parvati (R), and another Ganesha (F), the reduction in cost by from 7 to 5 makes it substantially easier to fairly reanchor your characters....