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By: MarcosPMA, nn
Nov 24 2016 1:00pm
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Sealed Success!  As you read this it'll be Thanksgiving, or rather you'll probably be reading this after that on Friday.  Since it is Thanksgiving, I'd like to thank all of you for reading/watching my content week after week for the past three years.  It's been a lot of fun and I'll be honest, I didn't expect to last this long.  So thank you for everybody that helps make that happen.

This week I'd like to take a look at some of the overrated cards in Kaladesh Limited.  Now, these are cards that I personally overrated while doing my set review and have now found are less powerful than I initially thought.  Card evaluation is very subjective and isn't a perfect science so there's bound to be mistakes every once in a while.  Mistakes will always happen, but by accepting them and growing from them we're able to minimize future ones and possibly correct them as they happen.

Overrated Kaladesh Cards

 

In normal formats I think these cards would be quite good, but they don't live up to snuff in Kaladesh.  They both offer the chance at a two for one, but then you realize that those opportunities don't really exist.  The mere fact that Servos exist make one toughness creatures undesirable since you might end up trading your one toughness creature for a Servo that didn't cost your opponent a card.  In the end Chandra's Pyrohelix is two damage for two mana and while that's not bad, it's a little less than what I initially thought would happen.  Furious Reprisal falls prey to the same problem Chandra's Pyrohelix has but it has a higher upside.  I thought Reprisal would end up killing two solid creatures for four mana, but instead it kills two medium creatures and sometimes it can't kill anything if the game goes long enough.

When I saw this I thought it was going to be very good in a Vehicle deck and would give you a good reason to play lots of them, but it didn't pan out that way.  It's still a good card and the +2/+0 to all your creatures is nice, but I had thought you could be activating 3-4 Vehicles and getting in for a lot of damage.  It turns out that you can't play too many Vehicles because they cut down on your creature count, so the dream of having a lot of Vehicles in play is less desirable, not to mention people don't pass Vehicles so you have to be lucky to get more than two per deck.

A lot of players don't make a lot of Servos.  1/1 creatures aren't very good unless you're the Inspired Charge deck, so more often than not I believe a player would opt for the counter instead of a Servo.  Of course circumstances may vary but let's assume that what I believe to be true is true.  In that scenario Make Obsolete is just not very good.  You want this card to kill a lot of creatures without having to put much effort in, but you kinda have to work for it be what it could be.  I believe this is a sideboard card most of the time unless you really want what amounts to be a small effect.

I'm not saying Hunt the Weak is a bad card, I'm just saying it's not as good here as it normally is.  Honestly, you want this to kill Vehicles.  Sadly, it's very hard to kill a Vehicle when it's not animated on your turn.  More often than not the times you can kill a Vehicle when it's a creature happen to be the times when your opponent is taking their turn.  You can still use this to kill other creatures, but sometimes it won't kill the thing that will kill you.

Kaladesh Sealed League

After I made the UG deck, I decided to sit on it for a while to see if I felt any differently about it once I gave myself some perspective.  When you're in the deckbuilding process, even if it's untimed, there's a bit of pressure in not only finding the right deck but to play with it right away.  If I give myself time to process everything and come back to it when I have a clear head, then I'll do much better.  In this case I felt that while the deck seemed underwhelming, it was still the best option I had.  There are times where I wish that upon returning I see something I didn't see before and it changes everything, but unfortunately that didn't happen here. 

I split the first two matches and they happened to be quite uneventful.  The first match I got brutally slaughtered by a good curve and my own missteps, while the second match I had the tools I needed to win both games and my opponent did not.  Normally I block out 2-3 hours to play a few matches of Magic, but I believe I was done in about 30 minutes, which tells you how quick those games were.  With a 1-1 record I only need a minimum of 2-1 over the next 3 matches to end up in prize support.  I can't imagine doing any less than 3-2 overall, but the goal is still to get there even if I feel I can do much better than that.

Kaladesh Draft League

Pick 1 is likely wrong here as Architect of the Untamed isn't as strong as Skywhaler's Shot.  Architect is a nice payoff once you're in the energy deck, but to take it first is to try and force that deck because otherwise it's just a 3 mana 2/3.  It feels a little similar to Tireless Tracker, but it's nowhere near as powerful because 1 energy isn't worth nearly as much as a single clue.  Tireless Tracker represents card draw and actual card advantage where the Architect of the Untamed is merely the possibility of it.

Luckily for me green was pretty open so the idea of being an energy deck was actually a possibility for me.  From my perspective I didn't really see an open enough second color, but perhaps that's because I took green cards over anything else where possible.  I ended up with a light blue splash featuring three Malfunctions.  The deck clearly has some issues regardless of my 2-1 record after playing my matches.  The curve needs work as I don't have enough 2s and I'm glutted at the 3, so oftentimes I'm going to be starting the game on turn 3.  While this isn't a super-fast format like Gatecrash or original Zendikar, starting on turn 3 isn't what you want to be doing.  If you're too slow and they have a tempo deck then you're going to lose games.  Other than curve I don't have much power.  I have a lot of medium cards that need Panharmonicon or Architect of the Untamed to actually be useful.  The deck is very medium and should lose more often than it wins.  Thankfully I went 2-1 so I got something out of it, but I think this might be one of the weakest decks I've drafted in Kaladesh.

Conclusion

That elusive 3-0 trophy from a draft league has evaded me once again, but we'll keep trying until we get it.  Personally, I just want to see what the trophy looks like.  I have a feeling it's less impressive than the word "trophy" makes it out to be.

Next week I'll be back with some of the underrated cards in Kaladesh Limited along with another draft league and more matches of my sealed league. Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who read and watches my videos.  I'm all for being honest and I'll admit that there are much better content producers out there in terms of skill and quality.  I don't pretend to think that I'm better or bigger than I am, so I'm truly humbled that I even have an audience period.

Thank you for reading/watching!  Happy Thanksgiving!