I know these sealed events are happening, is no one playing them? Are they just the most horrible things ever?

I'm definitely playing sealed. I'm just not confident I have enough cards for the tourney scene (yet).

Sealed is a different beast, and you can't plot and scheme as much. There will be plenty of players when it starts. See you there.

I played sealed in the NYC PCQ today, I had a great time. We played 5 rounds of swiss then went to a top 8 and drafted. I ended up taking 2nd place, 1st was John Firello (sp?), 3rd and 4th were Justin Gary and Scott Sadin.

I seem to play sealed all the time and I like it a lot, something about not knowing what you're going to get to play with until you open the packs (or the brown paper bag). Primarily I've played a lot of sealed because the sealed PCQs happen first and I keep top 8'ng. I'm gonna have to start playing constructed now though else I'll get wiped all over the gencon indy floor.

I wish one day of Indy would be dedicated to Limited and the second day for constructed, with a cut based on your performance in both; I think it'd be a better general skill tester.

Sealed tournaments at huge events like this are way more about luck than skill. There's gonna be a large number of players who are all very skilled and the one who gets the best pulls will probably win.

Constructed is pretty much all about skill at these huge events anyway. Everyone who is seriously playing in these tournaments has an unlimited card pool so it pretty much comes down to skill in play, deck construction, metagaming, and a little bit of luck in matchups and draws.

I think the reason not a lot of people are playing sealed is because of this. If you have the resources to build and test competitve constructed decks, why would you want to play sealed where you could lose because of a pull? In my experience, sealed formats generally tend to be most popular with newer players, players who can't afford to buy a lot of cards, and players who aren't ready in terms of skill for a high-end constructed competitive environment.


-Eric

While I agree that sealed is very much a lottery, I intended my comments to be for draft. Personally I think there is an entirely different skillset required to successfully play in the limited format.

I think if you're smart enough to draft a good deck, than you could build a good constructed deck so why would you bother drafting at all when you can play constructed and win tons of $. I guess that's my point.


-Eric

I disagree. Draft tests your skill of knowing the cards, remembering what was passed and playing with a limited deck that you don't have tons of testplay time with. It also tests your actual 'play skill'.

It's easier to build your whole skillset around one type of deck and then prepare it to tech against other types. It's much more harder and takes more skill to draft well and play against a field that is just as varied as your deck is. Once you see the first 2-3 drops of your opponent in Constructed, you can pretty much plan your strategy... in Draft... it's harder to guess what's coming.

Much more balanced skill in draft... and not just drafting but also playing your cards.

I definitely think you are giving sealed play the short-end of the stick. One of the reasons I played the sealed instead of the constructed is I wanted to get a chance to play in a competitive sealed environment before Gen Con (because I assume some kind of sealed play will be involved in the pro circuit). I was not disappointed as I got to draft against 2 players already qualified, Justin Gary, and 4 other players who all appeared to know the game quite well.

Sealed is a different challenge cause you have to think very differently, play w/ cards that you never thought of playing. It's not like you can just practice lots w/ your speed brotherhood deck and get to know it inside out and be done w/ everything. This is especially true in draft where every choice you make will likely impact the outcome of the tournamnet for you. I do agree that sealed play can be a lot of luck, especially in a large tournament, a good player who opens a really good deck will have a huge advantage. However I feel when you're drafting against players w/ like skill that it's very likely to come down to draft skill and not luck to determine a winner.

It's nice that you got to top 8 draft. At the Detroit PCQ we had to play top 8 with our sealed decks. I like sealed, but draft is a better test of skill.
Yes, it's much better to play constructed where you can lose because of a bad pairing.
You can just accept that there's luck involved in either, and go with what you're good at. The best Magic players I know consider themselves limited specialists, so I'm not going to say there's less skill involved.

I think constructed is sometimes a better test of skill, but what I saw on saturday at Neutral Ground was not that. I dunno how many copies of Boccio's Philly winning deck I saw running around. Did these players use their great deck building skills to arrive at the same deck? I'm thinking they just copied it off some website (or Matt himself). Some of them weren't even very good players. I'd much rather play someone like this in a sealed deck environment, atleast then I can use the fact that they're not very good deck builders against them. Sealed and draft test a different skill set than constructed, and that is a good thing. I like draft more, but I also realize what an advantage it can be to be seated next to 2 less experienced players in a draft.

Not a big fan of sealed at all.

Draft I can enjoy though.

If I was to have to choose which tested skill I would definitely say it was draft.

I guess it could be said for sealed as well trying to weasel your way through with a pile of crap is a true test of skill. Just to random to be a real even test. If you though netdeckers were annoying imagine playing against the same players that pulled good packs and you got Micro Sentinels and Power Cosmic with no Doom or Sentinels...

See the point?

Guess I missed the point. Most netdeckers I know really don't have that good a grasp of the game. I'd much rather put them in a position to have to build a deck on their own (something they obviously don't have much experience doing). They'll likely leave out some of their better cards, and might see something like Lost City or Genosha and immediately play it cause the play them in their netdeck. The scary thing is when a really good player opens up a really good sealed deck, there's not much you're gonna do to beat him if you don't get a decent pull.