So last night, we wanted to do more with our box than just bust it. As huge limited fans, we wanted to do a draft to "get a feel" for the limited game.

We ended up doing a "3-on-3" (our preferred draft format). Essentially each person drafts individually, you just play everyone on the opposite team. Usually winners get the rares; but because all of this was from Chuck's boxes, Chuck got everything and we played for fun.

The table results ended up being:

Me (Hoard Priest)
Allaince Paladin
Hoard Rogue

VS

Alliance Paladin
Alliance Warlock
Alliance Hunter

My deck did really well. Usually my opponent's hand was completly empty by around turn 4-5, making it difficult for them to build resources. Gems included 3 Shadow Bolts, 1 deal 2 can't be prevented damage, 1 Resurrection, and 2 Vicious Strike (I think that's it's name? Destroy Target Ally for 4). Had 3 Mia Putrid (hand destruct), 2 5/4 Ferocious characers, the gravedigger, several "come into play to deal 1", the weapon breaking guy, the armor breaking guy, and a few other allies. My curve was fairly high (usually I began building non-Mias about turn 4), but topped out at 6.

Against the slower decks, my hand destruction pummeled them. They were left unable to lay resources, and I would effeciently take out their armors and weapons with my allies. Battles were never truly close, with me always swinging back the game around turn 5 or 6.

The hunter absolutly obliterated me. His curve topped out at around 3 or 4, and he would just get an efficient group of Elusive characters into play and pummel me down. Both games his hand was empty by 4, but thanks to having 4 (!) of the ally that gets +1 attack for each ally you have, coupled with a number of elusive allies, I was unable to keep his board paired down. I drew a fair amount of ally destruction, but he was still able to overwhelm me fairly easily. He proceeded to 3-0 with his deck, and I imagine he would have beaten his other teammates as well (neither of his teammates won a game vs us).

So, what I learned about Shadow Priest:

*Shadow priest is really strong vs any slow deck. The card destruction theme is powerful, and it wasn't terribly hard to pull off.
*Heal spells are wastes of cardboard. I drafted 3 late Flash heals and figured they'd be good for keeping allies around. Most battles ended up killing an ally in a single card effect or swing though, so they were always terribly wasted. Mostly they ended up in my resource row. These are no better than the card "Healing Salve" in Magic. I imagine "Damage Prevention" is far more effective in this game.
*Power Word: Fortitude was a random "Power card". When you take a 4-life ally and give it +5 life, that becomes a stallart wall that's hard to deal with. Every time I played it I ended up efficiently dealing massive damage because of it.

What I learned in general:

*Allies are better than Hoarde. The elusive keyword is far more powerful in limited than Ferocious, and some of the effects they have on it (like the tapper) are quite good. Aside from that abilities are relatively similar; though the excellent card drawers are always powerful; Mia is strong in her own right, but once your opponent's hand is empty she's a 1/1.
*10 quests in a 30 card deck, no less. It was painful every time I laid a non-quest card, and I had plenty of turns I could use to do quests where I was otherwise wasting resources. I played 6 quests, and regretted it. Everyone agreed in the end they had not put enough quests in their deck (people ranged from 5-8, and some people played decks as large as 35 cards since we had heard decking was an issue in Sealed).
*Equipment seems a bit fragile... or maybe my deck just had enough equipment destruct where it felt that way. Every time my opponent played a weapon or armor I broke it. At the very least, I wouldn't play much of it. Still, if I had a weapon I could swing I may have had less issues with the elusive guys...
*The best words that can be on an equiment is "free to use" (0 cost to swing). The dagger is possibly the best weapon in the game, with cheap cost and an effective "1" you can put into opponent's characters without slowing down your curve.
*Speed is critical. Parts of me think the only reason my deck did so well was most of my other opponents were slow as well.

Whew! So that was my first (of many) drafts... talk about your experiences.

Dave, what did you think of the Rogue deck?

If you were playing a Horde Priest deck, then are you sure you were using Shadow Bolts? They are a Warlock ability.

Thanks for the input overall, a lot of questions I had about sealed were answered. We are going to do a few sealed today so I will put your advice to work!

Mind Bolt, deal 1 damage and your opponent discards a card. As you can tell by my descriptions, I haven't figured out card names yet .

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing it

Sounds like fun, can't wait to play the TCG myself >_<

Yeah, I was thinking that this would be a faster sealed, due to the efficiency of low-cost allies. 2/1s for 1 are abundant, while a 5/5 for 5 isn't just a "good deal", it's unheard of. (The best you can get would be a 4/4 that gives all your other chars +1 health or possibly a 5/2 that'll probably burn your opponent in the face.) I think in constructed play, there will be a lot more control/weenie hate elements coming out, but for limited they're going to be few and far between (and amazing when you do find them).

The big problem comes when people start drafting all the pump cards, which are located mostly between Warriors and Hunters; with these two classes split between at least 3 or 4 people, you'll actually be able to get the better stuff from the other classes, I'd imagine. Then again, multiple people fighting over the "good" abilities might still not be good enough to beat the weenies. We'll have to see.

Strangely, in our games the hunter always looked good... odd

About the Horde Priest. I looked at him and I thought about him and I talked about him. He won't be good for long. Ally decks ate him alive. Counter him with the Alliance allies that draw cards not to mention the Paladin class based abilities and you are wasting resources to break even. I was excited when I first thought about him now I'm just luke warm on him. I'll wait and see.

*rim shot*

Thanks for sharing!

I couldn't agree with you more about weapons with cheap swing costs, if you are spending your points to swing the weapon it just kills your curve.

so how far into the draft did you wait to decide what hero you were going to draft?

Did you include the hero cards as part of the draft?

If not did you let everyone pick whatever hero they wanted?

And... for answers.

The rogue deck was good, probably the 3rd best deck at our table. I think it's only problem was exactly what I anticipated: when he didn't get the stealth card and/or his dagger, he did really poorly. He also suffered from the same fate as the rest of us (aside from the hunter) of assuming that higher-cost characters were good; though thanks to his excellent combat tricks he was the only one to push the Hunter deck to game 3.

Heroes and point cards were thrown out of the pack. Per the rules, we allowed everyone to pick their hero. I actually commited to mage early (2nd pick Polymorph), but switched out late pack 1 after seeing priest cards circling the table. I briefly considered picking up Shaman, and had a few cards for that theme; but stayed with the priest, which feels like the right call. The mage deck did stay open; and I would have gotten better creature kill cards, but with so many decks going to the late game the hand destruction theme I ended up with totally blew them away.

On ally card drawers> You'd be suprised. Yes I had to kill that 1/3 that taps to draw cards on sight. But I had the cloak that let me deal an extra point with any trick; and despite my opponent's best effort had their hand empty 100% of the time by at 6 (at the latest). And I did have some decent spot ally removal. I think the Dark Priest draft is THE trump for other late game decks; I imagine Hunter, Warrior, or Rogue speed decks would give it problems though. Of course, I may experiment with a faster-curve dark priest in the future... kinda gain the best of both worlds.

I think a lot of the early curve comes down to it being underdrafted right now; when the Hunter could have his choice of all the early guys the rest of us passed up, it was easy for him to gather. If everyone starts grabbing these guys early, decks won't be nearly so concentrated, and later game decks will shine. I doubt you'll have 3 people ever viaing for ANY faction; the cards really dictate what can be played. For instance, though the mage would have ended up powerful in our draft and wasn't played, neither the Warrior nor the Shaman would have actually been playable if you tried (not enough support cards for them).

I'm glad the draft went well, I was worried that with so many class-specific cards draft might not work as well as with Magic or the like.

I played shadow priest in sealed and had the opposite experience with regard to PW:F - in the few cases that I played it the enchanted ally was removed by Polymorph, Interest You In A Pint, or Devilsaur Leggings, basically 2 for 1ing every time and providing card advantage for my opponent.

I agree with your assessment of the healing cards. At least in limited play they didn't seem to be that good. Allies are too brittle. With higher cost rare-type allies they might be worthwhile, who knows. I also agree with low curve decks seeming better in limited. With a lot of the good control cards sitting at uncommon or higher they're not as prevalent in limited, so rushes are harder to stop than in constructed.