How to Prep for the Marvel Super Heroes Prerelease

What You Are Walking Into

First thing worth saying: prereleases are genuinely fun. The atmosphere at most stores is friendly and relaxed. The staff wants you to have a good time. Nobody is there to shark you. If you have questions, ask someone.

When they are ready to start, they will tell you to open your kit. Wait for that signal before cracking anything.

Your kit contains six Play Boosters and one promo card, which is a rare or mythic from the set. You spread everything out, stare at roughly 90 cards, and have about 30 minutes to build a 40-card deck. Then you play three rounds against people who opened the exact same size pile of random cards.

Nobody has tested these. Nobody has a refined strategy. The playing field is genuinely level, which is why prereleases work so well for newer players.

Sort by Rarity First

When your cards hit the table, do not sort by color yet. Sort by rarity.

Your rares and mythics are almost always your strongest cards. They are where you start. Look at what you opened and let those cards tell you which two colors you want to play. The rest of your choices follow from there.

Splashing a third color is possible but it has a real cost. Only splash if you opened something that genuinely wins games on its own, and only if you have color fixing in the pool to support it. Otherwise you end up with a deck that stumbles on mana for cards that were not good enough to justify the risk.

Build Your Deck Like This

17 lands. This is the number. If you opened non-basic lands and they match your colors, count them here. You will be tempted to run 15 or 16 to fit more spells. Do not. Mana screws at a prerelease feel worse than losing with a working deck.

Two colors max. Pick the pair your rares support and stick with it.

Prioritize removal above everything else. If a card destroys or exiles a creature, it goes in the deck before almost anything else. Removal wins sealed games more reliably than bombs do.

15 to 18 creatures. Sealed games go long. You need bodies on the board. Lean toward the higher end unless your removal package is strong.

5 to 8 other spells. Removal first, combat tricks second, everything else last.

There is a great free 3D print by Westly on MakerWorld called the Sealed Survival Box that has this exact cheat sheet built into the lid. You do not need to print it to get value from the image. Save it to your phone before Friday.

The Three New Mechanics, Quickly

Power-Up is on creatures. Pay a cost, put +1/+1 counters on the creature, get a bonus effect. You can only use it once per creature. The key detail: if you activate Power-Up the same turn the creature enters the battlefield, the cost drops by the creature's own mana cost. Heroes can come out and immediately power up. In sealed, these creatures are stronger than their mana cost suggests.

Teamwork is on instants and sorceries. These spells have two modes. Cast it normally, you get one effect. Pay the Teamwork cost by tapping creatures with enough total power, and you get both effects. In sealed, Teamwork rewards you for playing a normal creature-heavy deck, which you were going to do anyway. Keep creatures untapped when you want to pull it off.

Plan is an enchantment subtype. Plans gain counters when you do specific things, then sacrifice themselves for a big payoff when complete. They are long-term engines that work well when you are ahead. Do not include them if your mana curve is already awkward.

Practice Your Pool Before Friday

I built a free tool that generates a fake MSH sealed pool using real card data. Six actual boosters, accurate rarity distribution, a promo, and automatic role tags on every card so you can see at a glance what is a bomb, what is removal, what is evasion, and what is a dud.

The pull odds on rares and mythics are real math. A specific rare shows up in roughly 1 in 9 pools. A specific mythic is closer to 1 in 19. So when you see something like Doctor Doom in your fake pool, you know what hitting lucky actually looks like.

Three Events, Three Pools

I am doing three MSH prereleases this weekend. After each one I will update this article with the pool I opened, the deck I built, and how the rounds went. Friday and Saturday events are evening sessions. Sunday is earlier in the day.

What to Take Away Before You Go

• Wait until they tell you to open your kit.
• Sort by rarity first. Let your rares pick your colors.
• 17 lands, including any non-basics that match your colors.
• Removal goes in the deck before anything flashy does.
• Two colors. Splash only if something wins games on its own.
• Your promo does not have to play if it does not fit.
• The atmosphere is friendly. Ask questions if you have them.

Good luck Friday. Do not forget your lands.