Despite the residuary assertions and comments, the major problem with WOTR sealed lies more with community,
and Decipher's effort in deck structuring coming in at a close second.
Let's look at the community's overall interest in WOTR sealed:
It's currently weighing in at less than 20 active players (players who made an effort to play the full compliment of games provided).
Compare that to the FOTR sealed with between 50 to 60 active players and
far more
second level players who got maybe a dozen games in.
Although there
is some level of meta in FOTR - Movie Sealed, because the general interest is so much higher, the variety of booster pulls and decks attempted has a chance to broaden.
You can tell something is up when all of the vast majority of the
good sealed competitors don't really bother getting involved at all.
You don't see Raelag, UPC, Shadyspawn, TinkerT, Legion. This is probably due to the low return on actual good competition.
WOTR sealed is already bad enough with the way Decipher threw the starter decks together (around SoG general care and effort put into developing LOTR TCG content started a clear decline). By serie 3, the only amount of skill you need to have as a player is to decide which order to kill companions in using
stragglers. Whatever your
actual ability as a player is doesn't really matter when the game is just a crap-shoot to see if you can run faster than your opponent can draw the right cards.
Thus, the meta for WOTR sealed has degraded to a somewhat of a stagnant pool, where only players who embrace the big-fish in a small pond mentality take it seriously. In actuality the league is pretty much a crock, and the real sharks are where the real competition is: the major sealed events. In the end, the reason that this league
feels boring and uncreative, is because it
IS, haha; leaving real competitors to not even bother with it, as it's not actually a measure of what most would consider skill in this game.
It didn't help the matter that
this particular one ran at the same time as the FOTR sealed
Regarding the decks themselves, there is no clearly better Serie 1 starter deck in almost any sealed with the possible exception of Towers, when looked at from a strict starter-only standpoint. WOTR sealed has a point within serie 1 and 2 where you can get away with playing other strategies
slightly based on your booster pulls, and enjoying a competitive game. By serie 3 however, Decipher
really dropped the ball, and the league is a complete joke, as Cthulhu already pointed out.
I'd say, if you're like me and just want to enjoy the fun competition, but don't care about points at the end which don't actually measure much, give it another try and just play serie 1 and 2. There WILL still be a lot of people playing Gandalf starter, BUT depending on your pulls you might be able to make a really strong rohan deck, or at the very least a competitive one. Gondor isn't even half bad sometimes. By Serie 3, feel free to join in, but if you want to be able to compete, make sure you pick Evil Men, and keep some ice handy for your nose, as you might bruise it while rolling your face around on the keyboard with everyone else