Sealed Deck Primer

Hello Hexers! My name is Jason Zila, and I am a proud member of the development team at HEX Entertainment. Our dev team has a diverse range of tasks that we collaborate on, and I devote a lot of my time specifically to playtesting and balancing the power level of all of our formats—both PvE and PvP, Constructed and Limited.

As many of you may have already heard we’re going to be giving away $100,000 at our very first HEX Invitational and anyone can qualify! Let’s talk about the first qualifying format: Sealed Deck.

What is sealed deck?

Sealed Deck is a format in which each player begins with 6 booster packs (90 cards) and 20 of each standard resource. The player then must build a deck out of those cards. The minimum deck size is 40 cards, with all of a player’s unused cards going into their reserves.

One of the perks of entering a Sealed Deck tournament is that you get to keep all the cards that you open! It’s also the perfect format for new players who don’t have a large collection but are interested in playing the game.

How does it differ from other formats?

Sealed deck differs from our other formats in that players are restricted to creating a deck using only the cards and resources provided to them.

In Constructed, players have a lot more control over their deck construction, as they can pick and choose which cards they wish to use out of their entire collection. The beauty and excitement of Sealed Deck is that you’re never quite sure what you’re going to open– evaluating card power, finding synergies, and optimizing your randomized pool of cards offers a fun new strategic twist on traditional deck building.

How do I build a good sealed deck?

One of the most important aspects of Sealed Deck (and really, this applies on some level to all HEX formats), is understanding how Resources work. Having the right resource base –17 to 18 resources tends to be ideal for a 40 card deck– will have a huge influence on how well your deck performs.

Also, if you’re just starting out, I highly recommend keeping your deck down to just two shards; this will allow your strategy to remain focused and ensure that you hit your thresholds consistently. As your acumen for the game grows, you could experiment with splashing a third shard into your deck when your card pool supports it.

Another important aspect of Sealed Deck is understanding the pace at which games play out–gameplay in Sealed Deck tends to be a little slower than Draft and Constructed. That means we must evaluate our cards through a slightly different lens. For example, a card such as Suffocate can be much more impactful in Sealed then it is in another environment, simply because you aren’t as likely to get run over before the mid to late game where this card really shines.

Here are some general tips for building good sealed decks:

You want a good mix of costs in your deck

You nearly always want several cards with cost 2, 3, 4 and 5 in particular

If your deck is faster, add in more 2 cost cards and even 1 cost cards, and for a more late game deck you can add in a few more cards that cost 5 or more resources

What are my best cards?

This is hard to know right off the bat, but over time you’ll get better and better at evaluating power level. Sometimes it’s as simple as noticing a rare or legendary card with a huge effect—beyond that, look for a good cost-to-stats ratio on troops, and look for actions that leave a real impact on the board. Removal Actions– cards that deal damage, or destroy or hinder enemy troops, are often useful tools. Include some!

Also, look for ways to win the long game. Any game of HEX can go long. Troops that are hard to block or actions that draw extra cards are perfect ways to stay strong and pull ahead of your opponent in the late game.

Ultimately, troops are at the heart of Sealed Deck, plain and simple. Try your best to have around 14 to 18 troops.

Remember, you only get to draw and play so many cards in a given game of HEX, so make sure those cards count. For example, a teeny tiny 1/1 troop better have a pretty strong power. It won’t deal much damage to your opponent, and it isn’t big enough to defend against most enemy troops.

What is the process of building a deck?

As a new player, I think it’s important to set up some kind of process or routine for deckbuilding. To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll go over the routine I follow the second I receive my card pool:

The first thing I do is use the collection manager to filter my cards by rarity to quickly glance over my rares and uncommons. How powerful are they? What shards are they predominantly in? Do I have any removal? In this case, I’m looking at two of the best rares in the set: Vampire Princess and Indigo Dreamwalker.

Are there any cards I can try to focus my deck around? For example, Hatchery Cultivator is a card that grows in value with each card that I add in my deck that create spider eggs.

Next, I will filter my cards by shard and do another review; this time I’m trying to evaluate the total value of each shard as a whole. Remember, I’m typically looking to identify the two most powerful shards in my pool, and those will ultimately be what I build my deck out of. In my pool, Ruby was also a strong contender with the amount of removal it offered.

Once I’ve selected my best shards, I’ll begin breaking those shards down individually, adding the cards I know I want in my deck. This usually consists of powerful rares, actions that remove opposing troops from the board, and troops that have good stats for the cost. In my deck, Blood and Sapphire were the strongest by far. Ruby offered far more removal than Blood or Sapphire, but it didn’t offer great troops nor were any of the individual cards as powerful as Vampire Princess or Indigo Dreamwalker.

One of the things you’ll notice with our most recent set, Armies of Myth, is that each featured race has its own shard pairing. In the example above, I found the majority of my powerful rares and removal cards were in Blood and Sapphire, which was perfect because those are the two shards that apply to Vennen and the spider strategy.

After I lock in the cards for my deck, it’s now time for me to choose my Champion and add gems to my socketable cards. I had quite a few cards that were putting Spiderlings into my opponent’s deck, making Zorzym of Korru the optimal choice.

That’s pretty much the full rundown on sealed deck! It’s a fun format that offers a new experience every time you play, and it’s a great way to build your collection while improving your skills.

If you begin to experiment with incorporating some of the strategy outlined in this article, you’ll be a pro at Sealed in no time, and you’ll have a great foundation in place for other formats too.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your Sealed Deck pools!

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