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Main » Articles » Thoughts from Duels 2014

Thoughts from Duels 2014

Abe Sargent
Posted on July 10, 2013
 Reddit

Two weeks ago, Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers arrived, and we could start playing with the new game and see some of the new cards firsthand from Magic 2014. It’s always a lot of fun to dial it up on Duels!

For the last few days, I have put about twelve hours into Duels 2014, and I have some thoughts on the campaign as well as the Sealed. I thought I would share them with you today, starting with Sealed because I really have a lot to say with the Sealed game.

On Sealed

I was really looking forward to Sealed in Duels 2014. It seemed like something right up my alley—build a Sealed deck, play a few games, win some more packs, and slowly make your deck better and better.1 I threw myself into Sealed with abandon.

"First Sealed Deck – Final Version"

Volcanic Dragon
This deck seems like a normal Sealed deck that grew over time with a few extra packs. There’s nothing here that jumps out as broken or ridiculously redundant. I began with the two Dragons, the Specter, a Nighthawk, and the Phoenix as my power creatures to build around. I slowly pulled out a second Abomination or other cards for better selections.

I began with all of the removal cards you see above; I only drew crap I didn’t use—except the Geyser—which I opened in my first pack after beating up Ajani. Earthquake with Dragons and a Phoenix pulled me to red, and I never ended up with any burn other than that Turn to Slag I started the game with. My black was the strongest, with three removal spells, a Bat and the Nighthawk for more flying, and solid cards.

As I added the three new packs, the card quality helped. I still have a few cards in here that aren’t quite great, such as the Bonebreaker Giant and the Abomination. But the card quality definitely improved.

This was an adequate start to the Sealed concept, so I went ahead and made another deck and tried again. My results the second time through were really sad. Take a look . . .

"Second Sealed Deck – Final Version"

Aegis Angel
In this card pool, I had six Turn to Slags. I opened these cards: two Pacifism, three Murder, two Aegis Angel, Serra Angel, Arbiter, Nighthawk, Black Knight, two Rats, War Priest, three Griffins, and two Bloodhunter Bats.

So right there, I opened an incredibly broken Sealed deck. I blew through opponents, and by the end, I was pulling out strong cards, such as a third Black Knight or my other two Bats for these cards. That is an incredibly vicious card pool, and I defeated all six opponents in about twenty-five minutes total. I steamrolled them, and it wasn’t even close.

Those are some sick cards right there. Did I get lucky, or was this a typical Sealed experience?

While the power of the cards may have been a bit much, I noticed some things in my second go-around. Many of these things really concerned me about future Sealed fun. What were the issues I had?

First of all, note that the cards in the Sealed pool come from a small number of options. Not every card from Magic 2014 is represented, but cards from various sets and decks are included. That means that, typically, only cards that were good enough to make the cut in decks are in the pool. I never opened up a rare that would be unplayable in Limited. There was no Biovisionary or Firemind's Foresight in the card pool (or substitute in mono-colored rares of your choice that are unlikely to be played to back my point).

Shivan Dragon
Here, allow me to demonstrate my claim. All of the rares I opened were:

First of all, that’s not a very good random sampling. That’s way too many of some rares to see. I shouldn’t open up eighteen booster packs and find three of a kind for two rares and doubles for four more rares.

But this demonstrates my point quite clearly. The card pool is limited, and the cards are quite good. All of those cards will blow out a normal Sealed game at your local card store. So, you are opening up close to six guaranteed bombs or power cards when you play Sealed with Duels 2014. That’s not a good sign.

The next issue I noticed is that the card quality and limited choices continued.

Here are how many commons I had in each Sealed pool for which I had at least three of individual commons:

"Sealed Pool #1"

"Sealed Pool #2"

As you can see, my commons have quite a lot of duplicates over nine packs. When you see a mega pack of copies of power cards such as Murder and Shock and Rumbling Baloth, you can build some potent decks.

It seems that the card pool is really tiny. I even had six uncommons with at least a trio of cards opened in a Sealed pool (Leonin Scimitar, Black Knight, Briarpack Alpha, Molten Birth, Belltower Sphinx, and Spirit Mantle). When you are only opening up twenty-seven total uncommons in each pool, and I have three trios of uncommons, that says something.

With a limited card pool, plus the increased quality of cards, the result is a format that really doesn’t feel like Sealed. My final Angel/Vampire deck looked more like a deck you could take to your next Constructed game and have a good chance of winning. Shoot, let me build a quick sixty-card version of it—hold on.

"Second Sealed Deck – Sixty-Card Kitchen Table"

There you have it: a nice sixty-card deck for your next causal night.

When you can build a deck like that with nine booster packs, that is just a silly format.2

So, my results from Sealed were disappointing. But what about the campaign?

On Campaign

Simic Sky Swallower
Each year, there is one deck in campaign that I really lock onto as a great deck. What is interesting about them is that they are always different. I just enjoy decks that work together, and the only synergy is that I prefer decks with both a good early game and a good long game as well.

For example, in previous versions of Duels, some of my favorite decks that year included the Kiora Atua G/U deck—with the sea creatures and land acceleration—and the Liliana deck with the discard theme called Eyes of Shadow. Both of these were just mounds of fun, and I would play them against all comers in the campaign.

What really scares me is the deck I locked onto this time. I am playing a deck that I never really liked when it was Standard-legal.3

When I grab a deck to play, I usually don’t even bother to see what cards are going to be unlocked for it as I play; I like them to be a surprise. So, I started with the Avacyn’s Glory deck.

Going in, I would have guessed that the Enter the Dracomancer deck or the Chant of Mul Daya decks would have entranced me. The first is a deck built around cheap creatures and devour beaters. The second is a mana-ramp deck with Eldrazi at the top. Both look like fun to me! But for some reason, I have latched onto the Avacyn’s Glory deck.

What is this deck?

Honor of the Pure
It’s a mono-white deck that has a Humans subtheme, which is something that never thrilled me. It also has some fun Angels and a token theme. The combination of Humans, token, and Angels makes for a mixed-up deck, and it plays differently each time. Sometimes, I’ll have a nuts early hand and just win, and sometimes, I’m stalled out, and then I have out at least ten tokens that will beat down for game.

Against one foe, I had four Plains and three cards in my opening hand and kept it. I never drew anything else save for Plains the whole game, and I won in a few turns. My opening? Champion of the Parish, Gather the Townsfolk, and Honor of the Pure.

As I play the deck, I’ll see some crazy new card unlocked for it that is amazing. Baneslayer Angel? All right! Then, a few victories later, I unlock Restoration Angel. The cards just become better and better. I had to pull out my many expensive Angels, and I now can basically sideboard into an Angel control deck if I prefer.

Now, the deck keeps from growing too silly—it never unlocks that crucial fourth Champion or more than two copies of Honor of the Pure. But it is brokenly good. Here is my edited version up through the twenty-sixth unlocked card.

"Avacyn’s Glory, through Twenty-Six Victories"

Seraph of Dawn
I was really sad. I just pulled out my final Seraph of Dawn for the Inquisitor. I had a few too many Angels when I had added three, so dropping that down helped to keep my deck happy.

So, the deck works really interestingly. You can spit out cards and tokens and pump with a variety of dorks in the deck. My favorite card is secretly Mentor of the Meek. When you play small stuff (quite often), he is a cheap way to draw some cards. He easily makes a bunch of dorks.

Other cards this deck could have include Requiem Angel, Unruly Mob, Soul Warden, Geist-Honored Monk, and more. This is just the version that I really like.

Again, this is not normally my style of deck, but it works really well in Duels because it has game early and late.

Anyway, I have looked at both Sealed and my favorite deck in campaign mode. I hope you have enjoyed this little discussion of some of the things that Duels 2014 has. What is your favorite deck in campaign so far?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

 

 

1 It really seems quite Abe-ish when you consider the number of formats I have made or championed in my articles through the years, such as Shandalar, MagicShop, MTG: RPG, and even MTG Forge’s campaign mode. Considering how much I was looking forward to this, you can see how my disappointment grew after playing around with it.

2 Or perhaps Modern Masters. That would be an interesting challenge, actually: In a Sealed of about nine packs of MMA, what would you be able to build?

3 Which includes right now, incidentally enough.

Order Magic 2014 singles and boxes today!

TAGS articles, sealed, casual, duels of the planeswalker, dotp, abe sergeant, magic 2014, m14

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