FAB Tournament Report: Underworld Games Online Arcane Rising Sealed
I recently took part in an online “simulated Sealed” event run as an Armory kit by Underworld Games in the UK. Given the virus restrictions and all that, this wasn’t played with real cards, but rather with the “pack simulator” feature of the Flesh and Blood - OSC mod. I thought this would be a fun way to try out Sealed — a format that I believe I’ve never played before in any game, or maybe once ever at a Two-Headed Giant event of Magic: the Gathering?
I didn’t find myself with anything too stellar in my packs — no legendary equipment, Induction Chamber, or tons of cards for one class. Thinking about my options, it seemed to me that either Runeblade or Mechanologist might be my best option, as I had more cards for those class than others, my Ranger had poor arrows, and I was worried that I would merely get blocked and fatigue out as Wizard given the Arcane Barrier equipment in this set.
Ultimately, I went with Dash, as I felt my Runeblade deck would be a little “durdly” with unaggressive cards like Read the Runes and relatively limited synergy with the Nebula Blade. If I had had access to the Reaping Blade, things might have been different, but as it stood I wasn’t confident I would be able to be threatening enough with Runeblade. Further, all the Opt I had meant Dash might be able to Boost quite reliably, which struck me as key to aggressive play here.
I also tended to run over thirty cards in the deck to prevent fatigue, which turned out to be prudent — lots of games headed in that direction! Here’s what it looked like most of the time (though I added a blue Life for a Life in my last game for further anti-fatigue defense):
Picture from the Flesh and Blood - OSC Tabletop Simulator mod. Flesh and Blood and its cards are © Legend Story Studios.
One note is that this is perhaps my first Sealed event ever in any game (I might have played a Sealed event of MtG in Two-Headed Giant format, but it might have also been a draft?), so I could very easily have played this one wrong — but on to the games!
Round One:
For the first round, I was paired against Viserai and rather apprehensive. I chose to go second, which was probably an error, but things went pretty well — my opponent had one huge turn with a red Rune Flash + four Runechants into a Cadaverous Contraband, but on reflection I decided to let the Contraband in so that I could carry out a big turn of my own with Boosts. Ultimately the combination of Opts and Boosts proved helpful and I didn’t even have to use my Achilles Accelerator — the one “blind” boost that I carried out landed naturally. Force Sight was an allstar in this game, enabling reliable boosts while also buffing up my attack.
Victory! (1-0)
Round Two:
My second round was another Viserai match. This time I went first and had a great first turn of load pistol, play a Convection Amplifier, and arsenal a Force Sight! The Convection Amplifier proved to be crucial later on in the game, allowing me to give Dominate to buffed attack actions to guarantee the on-hit on an Over Loop. Near the end of the game my opponent was down at three life, and I took a bit of damage to enable a Come to Fight -> Push the Point for 6 with the Amplifier giving it dominate. With no physical armor and no defense reactions, my opponent had no way to avoid taking three damage and losing the game.
Once again, my opts stood me in good stead this game and I didn’t have to use any “blind” boosts — on one turn I could have done so but decided not to since the payoff was just going to be a pistol shot.
Victory! (2-0)
Round Three:
I found myself facing off with Azalea this time, and it proved to be quite a prolonged game. Unlike previously, I wasn’t able to line up good Boost turns early in the game, which meant that I found myself blocking more than I preferred. Unfortunately the game was also going long, and we ended up going to time with both players close to fatiguing out! At the end we ran out of time and extra turns with both players very low on life. I was a bit frustrated that we hadn’t managed to complete the game. However, this ironically proved fortunate for me — I asked to see my opponent’s hand afterwards to see if he would have gotten me, and he could have fired one last arrow that I wouldn’t have been able to block. Extremely close!
Draw! (2-0-1)
Round Four:
This time it was back to Viserai. Once again though the game went quite long and we got into the extra turns. This time, I managed to fatigue my opponent out completely — but not in time! I thought this was going to be another draw, as the last “bonus turn” was just going to be my opponent passing with no cards left in hand or deck. However, he conceded the game at this point, giving me the win. This struck me as a gentlemanly thing to do and I somewhat wished I had done the same in my previous game, though I wasn’t sure my opponent was going to be able to close out the game at that time. In any case, it ended up as a win.
Victory! (3-0-1)
While 28 players in theory meant that we’d be playing five rounds before the cut, the fifth round of Swiss was cancelled by popular vote — many players had dropped (it was getting late in the UK, where this event had been hosted!), and we opted to move directly into the top four. My score of three wins and a draw was enough to make the top four, so it was on to the semifinals!
Semifinals:
In semifinals, I found myself facing off with another Azalea player. Once again, I came close to fatiguing out. This opponent had pulled several copies of Fate Foreseen and they proved an issue for me on offense.
However, this time I had what I thought might be a winning combination — I was going to be able to use Force Sight and Convection Amplifier to get a boosted + Dominated hit, then come in with the second Convection Amplifier charge and Push the Point for a high damage Dominated attack. My first attack got in with my opponent only blocking for two, leaving him at four life — if all he had was two blocks, my six damage Dominated attack would close out the game! I followed up with the Dominated Push the Point, and my opponent blocked for two… only to play yet another Fate Foreseen he’d been saving in Arsenal! Ouch!
At that point, even though my opponent was very low, I no longer had full hands thanks to fatigue, and he got me with his arrows on the next turn.
Defeat! (3-1-1, eliminated)
On the plus side, getting knocked out at this point allowed me to stream and commentate the finals. You can check out the VOD over at twitch.tv/towernumbernine if you like — note that there was some gory art shown in this one, though, so maybe give it a pass if you’d rather avoid that!
My quick summary of the finals (spoilers ahead for those who want to watch the VOD!) is that the Mechanologist player’s Induction Chamber gave him much more “weapon pressure” than his opponent, allowing him to ultimately prevail — even all those defense reactions weren’t enough to hold back all the pistol shots and Go Again attacks!
Takeaways:
Induction Chamber is incredibly, warpingly powerful in this format and if you pull one you should very likely play it. I think I would rather play an Induction Chamber than a Legendary! Two players built Induction Chamber decks and they both went undefeated except for when they were matched up against one another! (One dropped for the cut since he was one of the organizer.) Induction Chamber gives you far greater “weapon pressure” than anyone else in this format, and since fatigue is a real risk this can be a crucial advantage to have.
Aside from the Induction Chamber issue, which didn’t even affect me directly, I really enjoyed the Sealed experience! Cards that aren’t normally seen can be stars in this format — Force Sight did great, for instance!
Lack of physical armor in this set (the only ARC equipments that block physical damage are Legendary!) means that physical attacks can be more threatening; conversely, very wide availability of Arcane Barrier means that some of those attacks are going to be significantly less difficult to stop than they might be otherwise. Note in particular that pitching to use Arcane Barrier doesn’t remove your card, so can be very advantageous in a fatigue-heavy format like this one.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to play in a Sealed event despite the difficulty one would normally have with that given product availability concerns and the global virus situation. The UK group that will be hosting this has another one planned for the end of January — this time with Welcome to Rathe — and I strongly recommend getting involved if you have the chance! I don’t believe signups are up yet but it should be a fun time.
