March 08, 2010

Relaxed Night of Sealed Play

We had 4 players come out for the Marvel Team-Up sealed event on Friday; included one new player. It's always nice to have new people come out to play. Before we got started I asked if there were any rules he wasn't clear on. He wanted to see some examples of using reinforcement, so ran a quick demo for him before we started the tournament. Having an even 4-players I opted not to play and force one of the other players to sit out for byes.

With the players holding their packs and set to go, I lent my assistance to Nathan to help him build a somewhat balanced deck of Underworld and Defenders. He was lucky to have pulled two different team-up cards and a few generic pumps (including a copy of Big Leagues)!

His first game was up against Roy and things were going well into turn seven, where Nathan dropped a Crime Lords Hulk in front of his 6-cost character. I don't remember who that character was, but they did not share a team affiliation. Roy had his 7-cost Defenders Hulk out and gambled on there not being a team-up...which proved to be the wrong bet. Nathan flipped his second team-up, reinforced the Hulk and bounced Roy's attacker back to his hand.

Unfortunately Nathan's deck stalled out as the game went into turn 9 and Roy pulled off a resounding beating. Memorable moments for a new player, but even in defeat there was some success.

The second round saw Roy and Will face off against each other while Scott played the new guy. I wasn't hurrying anyone to play faster and just let the games go as necessary. This resulted in the second round being our last, but both games looked well-played and fairly close.

Next week's format is what I call "Uncommon Thieves", which means your deck can not include any rare cards. I've added the extra restriction that it must only contain cards from a SINGLE set as well. I'm interested in seeing what everyone comes up with.