Enhanced Format Sealed Deck
Enhanced Format Sealed Deck is Decipher's sanctioned sealed-deck format for the Official Tournament Sealed Deck (OTSD): each player opens one box of four Premiere boosters, one A New Hope booster and an 18-card premium pack. Decipher named it in 1998: "We are going to designate every tournament run using these products as 'enhanced format.'"[1]
- Type: sealed deck
- Defined by: Decipher (1998); Players Committee (2015, as OTSD Sealed)
- Card pool: one Official Tournament Sealed Deck per player; 40-card decks
- In use: 1998 – listed in 2015
- Also called: enhanced-format sealed-deck tournament (Decipher, 1998);[1] OTSD Sealed (Players Committee)[2]
- GEMP: none
Card pool
"Each player therefore starts with four Premiere booster packs, one A New Hope booster pack and the special 18-card 'tourney' pack." The Premiere packs were unlimited (white-border) and the tourney pack black-bordered.[1]
Decipher's procedure:[1]
- Entry fee (recommended $10–$15) buys the box; boxes stay sealed until after first pairings. The director keeps one extra box to swap with an unmatched player.
- Players draw their side (Rebel or Imperial) at random and keep it for the whole event.
- Paired opponents open their expansion packs and give each other the cards of the other side face down. "The only cards that are not exchanged are the 18 cards from the special 'tourney' pack." Players keep the cards they receive.
- About 30 minutes to build a 40-card deck. "Obviously, each player can only use 9 cards from their special tourney pack." Decks may be up to 60 cards if all players agree beforehand. No other cards may be brought in or traded.
- At least three games, then a final confrontation between the highest-scoring Rebel and the highest-scoring Imperial player. Between games players may swap cards one for one with their unused cards.
Players Committee: OTSD Sealed
The Players Committee's Alternate Format Tournament Guide (revised September 2015) lists the format as OTSD Sealed: each player needs one Official Tournament Sealed Deck, and the format uses the guide's general sealed rules:[2]
- Product stays unopened until each player is paired with a first opponent and assigned a side of the Force for the whole tournament.
- Both players open everything at the same time and swap, face down, all cards of the other side of the Force. Each player keeps the cards received.
- If a player has no opponent, the Tournament Director swaps with that player from an extra sealed deck.
- Deck building time is 10 minutes for 40-card decks and 20 minutes for 60-card decks. Between games a player may re-customize the deck from the original stock of sealed cards, but may not add cards from outside or trade.
The guide does not give a deck size for this format. Sealed deck games are timed at one minute per card in the deck. A tournament has at least three games and a Final Confrontation between the top Light Side and top Dark Side players, timed at 1.5 times the normal game length.[2]
History
Decipher explained why it made the product: in sealed play "Sometimes the basic ingredients for a great deck are not obtained from the purchased mix of starter decks and booster packs. The Official Tournament Sealed Deck solves this problem! The special pack of 18 cards (black-border) contained in every box provides the necessary support cards for a playable deck." It chose the name because "this conveys the higher quality experience players will get when competing in these events", and said the events "can be sanctioned, thereby contributing toward player ratings".[1]
Decipher's 1999 tournament FAQ recommended the format to new areas: "We encourage areas new to tournament play to experiment with formats. The OTSD enhanced boxes are excellent for this."[3] The OTSD Booster Draft drafts the same boxes and then runs "using the regular Enhanced Format Sealed Deck tournament rules".[4] At DecipherCon 1999 the sealed-deck final of The Gauntlet: Dual Formats was "OTSD of 3 games duration".[5] The same convention also scheduled an "Enhanced Sealed Deck (ECC+EPP)" event; its rules are not preserved.[6]
The Players Committee's Alternate Format Tournament Guide lists it as "OTSD Sealed": one Official Tournament Sealed Deck, sealed rules. The same product is the basis of the guide's OTSD Booster Draft, in which the boosters are drafted instead of swapped.[2] No event under the Players Committee rules is recorded on this wiki.
Tournaments
3 tournaments on List of SWCCG tournaments used this format, newest first.
| Tag | Event | Dates | Site | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-11 | DecipherCon 1999 Enhanced Sealed Deck | 13 November 1999 | Cavalier Hotel, Virginia Beach, Virginia | |
| 1999-09 | 1999 GenCon UK OTSD Sealed | 2 September 1999 | Loughborough University, Loughborough, England | |
| 2000-05 | May 2000 Madison tournament | 18 May 2000 | Madison, WI | Evan Fitzgerald |
See also
- Formats
- Official Tournament Sealed Deck
- OTSD Booster Draft
- Sealed Deck
- Jabba's Palace Sealed Deck (format)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Using the Star Wars Customizable Card Game Official Tournament Sealed Deck, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Star Wars CCG Alternate Format Tournament Guide (revised 09/2015), Players Committee. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Tournament FAQ, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Rules – Star Wars CCG sanctioned OTSD Booster Draft, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ DecipherCon 1999 – Event Descriptions: The Gauntlet: Dual Formats, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ DecipherCon 1999 – Event Schedule (Saturday), Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.