Image courtesy of Legend Story Studios

High Seas releases this week to unprecedented amounts of anticipation. We’ve had our first taste of what limited looks like from World Premier: Taipei, and online chatter has been endless over what’s shaking up Classic Constructed. There’s much to talk about, so let’s give this set an ample run down.

Sealed

The first format most people will experience with High Seas is Sealed. Pre-releases will be hosting this format across the world, and it will even have one more competitive showing at Calling: Las Vegas… And competitive it truly will be. This limited format is deeply rewarding for both macro and micro management of Treasure Island. With so much Gold in play, respect for every bit of damage as an on hit, when to crack Gold to draw, and when to use your hero ability all push the format to new heights of decision making. A lot of what’s needed to play this format correctly is experience, but a bit a primer should help, too.

As is the new norm, sealed will consist of eight packs with deck building limited to 30 cards. With eight packs, you’ll have access to 112 cards to build from which is significantly more than draft. This means that your average sealed deck will look quite powerful: a full equipment suite, plenty of reds, and a high-count blue base.

A successful sealed deck across each hero is still not fully explored, but from what we saw at World Premier: Taipei, if you open Scurv, Stowaway and Not So Fast… You should 100% play the deck. Without Not So Fast, a Scurv, Stowaway deck can still find success with plenty of thief synergy cards like Thiev’n Varmints and Light Fingers. With his hero ability creating Goldkiss Rum, plenty of on curve attacks are possible like the HMS line plus any two-cost or three-cost. He’s hard to get reps with since he’s so rare, but be prepared to play or face him at the top tables!

As for Puffin, her value comes from being able to draw cards from her ability ideally twice per game. Cards like Perk Up and Goldwing Turbine are the most accessible versions of effects that get you to the second crank, but you need to pay attention to your cost curve. With plenty of one-cost pumps and two-cost attacks, you may want to run Spitfire. With more one-costs you may want to be on Cogwerx Blunderbuss. 

Marlynn’s builds for Hammerhead, Harpoon Cannon and Redspine Manta can look quite similar. Most of your arrows will be 0 or 1-cost, so they’re flexible with either weapon. If your pool is quite mixed, I’ve heard that going first favors Hammerhead for some early overpower, whereas going second with Redspine Manta means you can attack with arrows in the first hand. If your pool has more two-cost harpoons like even the majestic King Shark Harpoon, Hammerhead is probably the de facto choice. If your pool has more 0-cost across the board like Nimblism and Scar for a Scar, Redspine Manta is better.

Lastly, Gravy Bones makes for some head aching sequencing, even in limited. His deck is the hardest to balance as allies, blues to play, blues to pitch, and effective reds all need to come together to win games. The best reds offer some form of go again, like Jittery Bones and Restless Bones. His best allies offer either awkward life totals like Cutty Shark, Quick Clip or massive damage like Swabbie. His blues, then, need to both function as pitch first cycle and playable for decent value second cycle. Some of the best cases would be Golden Tipple or Mutiny on the Swiftwater.

Draft

Hopefully many of you will experience High Seas draft before Nationals season. Both to prepare, but also because it’s so much fun!

Unlike in sealed, the average High Seas draft deck is lighter on blues, short on equipment, and Scurv, Stowaway is much harder to find and face. Draft strategies would be their own article entirely, but one thing to remember is how there are varying archetypes within heroes. In draft, three Marlynns could all find their strength in different cards: a harpoon build, a Redspine Manta build, and heavy generics with a Hammerhead, Harpoon Cannon endgame. Rather than picking what seems to be the most powerful individual reds, consider what synergies you’re putting together.

Classic Constructed

In classic constructed, it’s a bit of a race to determine which of the new heroes are worth running for Nationals. Puffin, Hightail has been an overperformer in most circles, offering a deep card pool and extra armor disruption in Palantir Aeronought. She consistently has been built around Spitfire and a galvanize package with Soup Up, but there are some outstanding questions as to if she should splash boost cards and Teklo Foundry Heart, or how many Copper Cogs to include.

There was a lot of buzz around Marlynn, Treasure Hunter being the next Lexi, Livewire, but that hype seems to have fallen off. The disbelief of the banlist not touching Three of a Kind seemed to bode well for the deck, but in early testing, it ends up being pretty linear and more clunky than anticipated. I think a perfected Death Dealer version with tight ratios of arrows is still likely to have a breakout performance, but the Hammerhead, Harpoon Cannon build seems to be more of a response to a meta than to define one.

Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter is a total Enigma (pun intended). Some claim that its power level is obscene, while others have given up on it completely. More than anything, I think Gravy’s success will come from opponent’s subpar game plans into him. With board state decks, the onus is on the opponent to understand how to beat it: do you race, clear only certain allies, or full fatigue? Decks that demand gameplans from the opponent tend to do very well in early metas. Think back to Calling: Melbourne with Dash I/O or Calling: Memphis with Cindra, Dracai of Retribution. Granted, those were aggro decks but they still fell off quite quickly after opponents understood to fatigue or block respectively. Gravy Bones just has so much to explore with the addition of his armory deck as well; it’s almost an information overload when building or even facing him and his gotcha interactions with Chum, Friendly First Mate and Sawbones, Dock Hand.

The meta is going to be wide no matter how you slice it. Expansion slots supported wizards but also countered them with Arcane Compliance. Jarl Vetreidi got a new earth block 3 and Victor Goldmane, High and Mighty has a new gold generator with Riches of Tropal-Dhani. Brutes gained Sea Legs, while Florian, Rotwood Harbinger lost his scepter. There’s simply no consensus as we go in blind for US Nationals next week and the greater Nationals season beyond. As a viewer, I’m locked in. I want to play, I want to watch, and I want to root for my friends and my favorite heroes. I hope to see you at your pre-releases and if not, at least in the chat of US Nationals!