MarcosPMA's picture
By: MarcosPMA, nn
Jun 19 2019 12:00pm
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Sealed Success!  Core 2020 previews have started and it makes me smile to know Core Set Limited will soon be coming back and be relevant for a few months.  It's one of my favorite formats because everything is generally balanced and it's about who can draft/play better to come up with a better strategy.  The likelihood of something having a card which instantly wins the game is low, so both players can play the game and not fear some crazy card they can't beat because it's a core set and the cards are only so powerful compared to other expansion sets.  It may be boring for most but I enjoy Core Set Limited and can't wait to start drafting and playing with the cards.  Until then we'll have to be content to play War of the Spark for a few more weeks until Core 2020 arrives.  Let's take a look at the upcoming schedule and play some Magic.

  • Today - War of the Spark Draft League #5, War of the Spark Sealed League #3 video, War of the Spark Sealed League #4 videos
  • 6/27 - War of the Spark Draft League #6, War of the Spark Sealed League #3 video, War of the Spark Sealed League #4 videos
  • 7/4 - War of the Spark Sealed League #3 videos, War of the Spark Sealed League #4 videos, Core Set 2020 Sealed Set Review
  • 7/11 - Core 2020 Limited

War of the Spark Draft League #5

It's a little hard to say how this draft went because of the one drafter who was afk for the entire draft.  I don't know how the draft would have panned out if they had been making picks the entire time, so all we can do is talk about what actually happened.  The draft went well in my opinion since I was able to get the better planeswalkers for the midrange planeswalker deck while still having decent creatures and removal.  If you're going heavy planeswalkers they need to have value, naming giving you extra cards either by drawing them or making creature tokens.  Arlinn, Voice of the Pack, Vraska, Swarm's Eminence, and Angrath, Captain of Chaos are planeswalkers which allow me to play less cards with the creature subtype but still play to the board and have creatures come into play when I play those planeswalkers.  If you don't get the planeswalkers which give you tangible value, they're much less impressive, more likely to die and/or be unable to stop your opponent from attacking.

As far as the matches go I can't say they were good ones as I either got lucky and won, or unlucky and lost.  The first match my opponent might have won if they played differently towards the very end, the second match my opponent didn't have much going on, and the final match I couldn't do much of anything.  I did have to make decisions in all three matches but I don't think they were that important when it all finally played out.  It's part of Magic, you're going to get games where the choices you make are irrelevant and the thing is to accept it'll happen and move on afterwards.

War of the Spark Sealed League #3

There really isn't much to say here other than my opponent never got any traction in the match and that allowed my deck to very easily win.  There are games where this happen and it's part of Magic.  The key is when these games happen for your opponent to not waste the opportunity and make sure you do everything you can to win.  It might feel bad to crush your opponent when they can't do anything, but if you show mercy that may give them a window to get back into the game.  If you get complacent or play relaxed your opponent could very easily punish you by stabilizing and then turning the corner.

War of the Spark Sealed League #4

I would say the biggest reason for me losing two matches to end up 1-2 after the first stage is my creatures didn't match up well to whatever my opponents were doing.  I don't have a good curve and my lack of 2 mana plays means I'm more often then not starting the game on turn 3.  2 mana plays aren't always important, but in a format with planeswalkers you need to be able to both defend and attack them, and if you can't play to the board turn after turn then it's not going to go well for you.  This is partly why I kept going to U/R so my 2 mana plays were more available to me and perhaps I wouldn't play from behind as much.  That didn't pan out as well as I would have liked, but the reason behind the switch was sound.  I must try and find a deck with a smoother curve and be able to keep up with whatever creatures my opponent plays.  What do you think?  What would you change going forward?

Conclusion

We did more winning than losing and that's always going to be a good week for me.  I do have issues with my sealed pool in the friendly league and hopefully I can correct those issues and have a better go at it in the second stage.  It's hard to tell if my deck is good in the competitive league since my opponent didn't put up much a fight, so we'll have a better idea once we play another match and see how it plays against better competition.  In any case I'm glad War of the Spark wasn't a completely bad format as I thought it might be, but oddly enough for me it isn't amazing either.  When I first thought of a set with a large number of planeswalkers I had the idea it would either be amazing or completely terrible as planeswalkers are quite the polarizing card type.  Instead it was more of a middle ground with most of them being at uncommon and not warping games as they would normally do.

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns leave them in the comments section below.  I'll be back next week with my final War of the Spark draft and more sealed deck matches.

Thanks for reading/watching!