Survivors of the Megapocalypse Review for Sealed
Part 4: Darkness

 

Darkness Civilization

Are those double breaking freaks from Nature or Light giving you a problem? No worries mate, Darkness has you covered. The civilization of destruction brings a host of specialized slayers, more hand discard, and another playable Double Breaker to the Sealed format. Consider Darkness as the removal supplement the kick-butt offensive strategy of your Sealed deck. Another bonus—quite a few of Darkness’ offerings are affordable. 

Slime Veil

The only 1 cost card in the set is bad in Sealed. This card is good for making your opponent ram a field of blockers with the slayer ability or a field of blockers that overpower your opponent’s hitters (which is better since you retain your hitters). It has potential in Constructed play where you can setup your field or shields.

Playability: Not Playable

Jewel Spider

It’s a cheap drop. That’s about it. It has the ‘draw from the shield zone’ effect, but that’s not good in Sealed. If you lose a shield to a card’s effect in Sealed then you should do it in order to kill something big or turn all your hitters into double breakers. It’s wants to be Emeral, but it isn’t.

Playability: High

Gigazoul

Vanilla-ish 3000 power for 3 mana. Has a drawback of not being able to attack if your opponent has no shields. That means it can’t attack players or creatures, but if you manage to drop it early or going into the midgame that’s not too big a problem.

Playability: High

Wisp Howler, Shadow of Tears

It’s a solid hitter for the cost and can double as a slayer to knock off those pesky affordable Light and Nature Double Breakers your opponent plays.

Playability: High

Skullsweeper Q

It stands a chance to knock a card from your opponent’s hand and cause your other Survivors to do the same. In Sealed you do see cards in hand in the late game due to decks not having fleshed out choices at each mana cost. Players hold onto cards because they can’t yet cast them or can only cast 1-2 cards a turn. It’s 1000 power means that it won’t be chucking cards for long.

Playability: Medium

Horned Mutant

Another 5 mana 3000 creature, but is its effect good? If you don’t nab any Nature hitters, then Mutant has more playability. If you are running Nature’s then don’t bother with this creature. I don’t enjoy making myself pay more to run my best cards. If you don’t have a single nature card in sight, then this is an interesting counter to those easy to drop double breakers. I wish the taxation were 2 more mana instead of 1.

Playability: Low

Notes: If you don’t have any Nature cards then give Horned Mutant a shot depending on what else you have going for your 5 drops.

Gigakail

A bigger Wisp Howler. Its power is decent for the format.

Playability: Medium

Gigaling Q

Here’s another slayer that can slam more than just Nature and Light creatures. Less powerful than Gigakail for the same price, but it can share its slayer trait with your other Survivors. I prefer my slayers to come relatively cheap when anything can ram it.

Playability: Low

Vashuna, Sword Dancer

Use Vashuna to dwindle down your opponents’ shields then hit with another attacker once its restriction kicks in.

Playability: High

Scheming Hands

Ghost Touch is better for this format—trigger or 2 mana. Hands isn’t total junk, but it’s not a must deck either. Being able to knock away a card of your choice, like Twin-Cannon or other thing creature, is very useful but expensive at 5 mana. Discard effects are better on creatures in Sealed.

Playability: Low

Notes: If you have little else going for your 5 spot but have solid 3 & 4 drops, consider Hands.

Sinister General Damudo

Meet Vampire Silphy’s younger brother. You will see a lot of 3,000 and below creatures in Sealed. If your opponent has a bunch of those buggers out and needs to kill Damudo, then he’s lost big part of his field. In any format this creature requires precision play because it stands to take a few of your guys with it too.

Playability: Medium

Death Cruzer, the Annihilator

7 mana—doable. 13,000 power—insane. Triple Breaker—holy snap! Yeah, you know where I’m going with this. Cruzer MUST have a drawback—and boy is it some drawback. To party with Cruzer you have to destroy all your other creatures. Now, you can make Cruzer work in Constructed play where you have far greater chances to control what remains in play for your opponent and can amplify hand discard to further limit his options. You don’t have that luxury in Sealed and losing all your creatures to play Cruzer can bite you in the seat of your pants if your opponent has a ripe field and you have few shields or blockers because he has summoning sickness.

Playability: Low

As stated before Darkness can give your Sealed deck an extra kick by providing relatively cheap answers to fatties and some hand discard. The civilization isn't phenomenal on the whole, but several of the picks should find themselves in many decks.