10 hours playing Magic’s Marvel prerelease taught me an important lesson

There are many reasons to sign up for a big, competitive Magic: The Gathering event. Maybe you want to test your skills in a field of good players. Perhaps you need to practice for an even bigger event coming soon. Or maybe you’re just trying to escape a heat wave by spending the entire day in the cool, air-conditioned halls of a fancy hotel downtown. For me, it was a mix of all that this past weekend, as I headed to the Marvel Super Heroes showcase event to participate in the win-a-box Sealed tournament.

Organized by Magic Barcelona, one of the biggest card-trading shops in Europe, the Marvel Super Heroes showcase was a weekend event that included tournaments, cosplay, guest artists, and more. It was a nice way to spotlight the latest set and bring together the local community. I really needed some Sealed practice to prepare for MagicCon: Amsterdam, where I’ll enter the Limited Pro Tour qualifier event, so I signed up for Saturday’s win-a-box tournament, the more competitive of the two Sealed events happening that day.

My hopes weren’t high. I took one beating after another during early access on Magic Arena, to the point that I didn’t even write my usual prerelease guide for Polygon: I thought I had no good suggestions to give! On Friday, I went 3-1 on my prerelease, but it was mostly due to luck and inexperienced opponents. My black-red Villains deck felt truly underwhelming. The archetype is short on good early creatures to be an aggro deck, and it also lacks consistency and big threats in the late game. So you can imagine my delight when I opened my pool on Saturday and realized I had to build another black-red Villains deck.

As expected, the deck felt suboptimal. I lost my first game, then tied the second. If we had time to play a third game, my opponent would probably have won since he had a better deck. I won game three quickly, which was great because it gave me time to look again at my pool and find another option.

This is the most important lesson I’ve brought home from the event. Don’t feel married to your first choice of deck. If things don’t feel right and you have time to revise, don’t be afraid to do so. Especially so early after a set release, it’s easy to misjudge cards, archetypes, or how the set will play in Limited. In my case, I realized that tempo decks felt objectively stronger in Marvel Super Heroes Limited. My impression is that you have to deploy good, early threats and back them up with cheap spells. So I looked at my pool again and I came up with this:

Photo: Francesco Cacciatore

The best way to describe this deck is this: “Don’t try this at home.” It allowed me to play my strongest card, Agent Phil Coulson, but there are so many niche interactions and risky plays (Super Intelligence, hello!) that I would never call this a “good” deck. And yet, it worked. I won three games in a row and went from 1-1-1 to 4-1-1, making the cut for the top 8, which would take part in a Draft. I won most of the games with a quick start, either with a Kid Loki or Agent Coulson hitting the field early. I even won one game by playing Kid Loki and using Super Intelligence on it: Every turn, I drew two cards and grew Loki with a +1/+1 counter, giving him hexproof for the turn. My opponent didn’t find a removal spell quickly enough. It’s niche, as I said, but sometimes it works!

In my first Draft pack, I opened a bad rare and two powerful uncommons: Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes, and Hulk, Gamma Goliath. At that point, I had been playing for six hours already, so my brain went “Gruul games go fast,” or, to be more on theme, “Hulk smash!” That’s a terrible thing to do in Draft. You should always be ready to pivot to an open lane, and there was an incredible blue-black Villains deck going around the table. Instead, I ended up with an above-average red-green Power-up pile of cards, with at least three more people at the table drafting green, meaning that a lot of cards never came back.

Photo: Francesco Cacciatore

I liked the presence of cards like Misty Knight, Hero for Hire, Jessica Jones, Private Eye, and Baxter Building, which provided a source of card advantage and selection this style of deck usually lacks. However, I was missing ramp (Undercover Skrull would be a premium card for this deck) and bombs (Wolverine, Fierce Fighter is a nice card but far from a bomb) to feel truly confident in the deck. And yet, I was proven wrong once again. Both my games were against green-white Heroes decks, which was great for me since it meant they were taking cards away from each other during the draft. I won the first one easily, while the second proved a bit more challenging. Luckily, my opponent never drew the Avengers Assemble! that I opened in pack three and passed to him.

Somehow, I made it to the final. It was already past 8 p.m., so my opponent and I agreed to shake hands and share the prize. It was finally time to head home (even if I was loath to leave the sweet air conditioning of the hotel), but not before stopping at the best ice cream shop in town for a well-deserved treat.

Photo: Francesco Cacciatore

Many useful lessons were learned on that day. In a draft, you shouldn’t be married to your first picks. In Sealed, you should not be stubborn about the choices made in the beginning, be it about specific cards or the entire deck. Pro players with a lot of practice before an event can build the optimal deck in the time allotted, but we mortals might need one more try to get it right.

On the other hand, you shouldn’t feel too insecure, either: One loss doesn’t mean that your deck is bad. One of my friends had an excellent blue-green deck in his pool, but he changed it after losing the first game to add another color, and he ended up with a much worse result.

My perception of Marvel Super Heroes Limited may change again, but for now, the format seems to be mostly about creatures and tempo plays. Get on the board early and efficiently, and prioritize cheap spells to disrupt your opponent.

I hope everyone enjoyed their prerelease as much as I did. Contrary to expectations, this seems like a fun set to play. I may not be the biggest fan of Universes Beyond, but I have to admit that the old school Marvel fan in me giggled more than once looking at the cards. Damn you, Wizards of the Coast — you win again.