Did the 2HG today with a friend. I had planned on picking Dimir because U/B is my jam, Store said that they were out of Dimir. Sucks, but whatever. At least I could count on Nightveil Predator, my single most feared card in the set due to the almost universal inability to interact with it in any way, being pretty rare. So I picked Selesnya and my friend picked Golgari, with the plan on one deck going big and wide and the other supporting with strong removal and situational answers.
Literally eight seconds after we finished cracking all six packs, the store announced that they were mistaken, and they did have Dimir decks for people who preregistered, of which I was one. So that felt kinda crappy, but again, no one else had Dimir either so I felt like I had less to worry about.
We open a solid pool and build to plan, with two strong, consistent decks.
Round one, we were in a very strong position to win when we go to time and draw. We get paired down for round two.
Round two I have to mull three times down to five, but we actually pull out of the hole and are in a good position when one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and then the game is over.
Round three, we're ahead and not doing too bad. Then one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and the game is basically over, it just takes another seven turns of us not interacting with them in a meaningful way.
Now we're 0-2-1 going into round 4. So we drop and go home.
Overall we had fun, and I feel like our decks were very strong (we had four Dead Weight and 4 Prey Upon in our pool. We couldn't even run all of them). But we lost to double Nightveil Predator twice in a row, in a room where not a single person opened a Dimir seeded pack.
And all day that was the only card that felt bad to play against. I think in a Limited environment, at uncommon, Nightveil Predator is an absolutely toxic card. And I feared that would be the case going in, and I wasn't really surprised to find out it was true.
Yeah I went 2-1-1 at my prerelease with a pretty solid Dimir pool. I didn't pull any Nightveil Predator but the guy who beat me had like three, and they're basically impossible to deal with because they dodge all removal (edit: except Deafening Clarion) and nearly everything that stops them is a bad trade.
Don't get me wrong, GRN feels like a pretty fun environment in general, and my stack of surveil cards + Etrata did some work, but if your opponent has enough support to run Nightveil and you don't pull or pick them, you're getting rolled.
Yeah, in the third match I had to trade Equinauts for one, and they had an answer for every possible double-block scenario we concocted in order to deal with the other. It was at the point where our only out was to rip a Status // Statue for our Hitchclaw Recluse, but instead we drew four lands in a row lol.
And I guess it's worth reiterating that we did still have a good time. I agree that overall the set is fun, and there are a lot of great card interactions that were enjoyable to see. Mentoring my partner's creatures, for instance, was something that not a lot of people expected.
I just thought that the situation we encountered was a little silly.
I did two prereleases, one at midnight and another on Saturday with my cousin. I went 3-0 (my stores prereleases are pretty short) at midnight with a Dimir kit than let me build a fairly balanced Sultai tempo deck, with the green splash for Assassin's Trophy, Affectionate Indrik, and, my sole bomb, Arboretum Elemental. Got a foil Assassin's Trophy in my prize packs, so I left pretty happy.
In Saturday's 2HG event, I went Izzet, and my cousin had to use Boros when the store ran out of Selesnya for the event. Our pool for Izzet was fan-freaking-tastic. My deck ran sixteen pieces of removal, including two Expansion // Explosion and five Capture Spheres. Getting two Goblin Electromancer in my own packs helped, too. My cousin ran a Naya deck that splashed green for Trostani Discordant and had a pair of Dawn of Hope.
We went 3-0. Under a withering barrage of removal, our life total never dropped below 15.
Midnight pr i went 2-2. Went Golgari and got no help from my packs. Pulled 2 Vindicator and no cards to support them. Was forced to play some janky RG deck. Everyone was amused with how bad my card pool was.
Noon pr i went Dimir. Better card pool but still not as good as others i had seen. Went 2-1 and then split with R4 opponent to ensure with both got a 5th pack because i had been up for 36 straight hours.
R2 my opponent and i both misread a card which led to my winning the match (which he later realized after R3). So during R4 as a gesture of good faith i gave him 2 of my packs because i dont like winning that way.
So in total i cracked 19 packs. Promos were etrata and mausoleum secrets. Pulled 2 Charnel Troll, 1 Phoenix, 3 Vindicator, 2 Risk Factor, 1 Steam Kin, 1 Cyclops,1 Quasiduplicate, 1 Response/Resurgence, 1 Knight of Autumn & 1 Sacred Foundry.
I bought a playset of GRN so i was really hoping to get more value from the prerelease to trade for Ixalan/Dominaria cards i missed
Only lost 1 match all night, and that loss was due to mulligan to 5 game 1, mull to 6 with 2 Swamps and 2 deathtouch 1 drops, never draw another land for 6+ turns and lose. Overall, when the deck functioned without mulligans and mana screw, it felt unbeatable. Great tempo plays, great removal, and a bomb that was extremely helpful with every activation. Shout out to the MVP Card Draw Cat for drawing me into a removal piece that won me one of my matches.
Picked Dimir, but as soon as I saw Vraska, there was no question on a green splash. Very pleased with this deck.
Midnight pr i went 2-2. Went Golgari and got no help from my packs. Pulled 2 Vindicator and no cards to support them. Was forced to play some janky RG deck. Everyone was amused with how bad my card pool was.
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
Midnight pr i went 2-2. Went Golgari and got no help from my packs. Pulled 2 Vindicator and no cards to support them. Was forced to play some janky RG deck. Everyone was amused with how bad my card pool was.
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
I said as much to my group of friends when we were all cracking our kits. There is a very real possibility that you could be trying to build a deck from 5 packs instead of 6 if you dont get guild help from those. Specifically for Ravnica, I would have liked to see entire kits dedicated to guild. Having every card on color likely would have been too much, but perhaps guaranteeing that 1/2 of every pack was guild specific would have been enough?
While I think I managed to scrap together a decent deck, I had very few ways to stop aggressive assaults, and I ended up against 2 Dimir decks, 1 Boros and 1 Izzet. The Boros player absolutely demolished me, and one of the Dimir players I faced opened 2 Dimir Spybugs and a Kraul Swarm. Three of the four games I had to side out both Collar the Culprits 'cuz they were literally useless. Had I faced a Golgari or a Selesnya opponent, I'm pretty sure I would fare batter, but alas.
As for noteworthy singletons, I opened a Lazav, the Multifarious and a Hatchery Spider, but with actual zero other Surveil/Graveyard cards (not even the Catbro or the Rat), I couldn't make anything useful out them.
the LGS I played at handed kits out randomly at all 3. can't remember the logic.
opened Izzet first one. Got Niv in a pack and firemind's research as my promo. went 3-1. loss being in last round
got dimir second one, can't remmeber my promo but went 3-1. ended up playing sultai splashing red for Ral. didn't think deck was good but went 3-1, loss being in last round again.
both these events I offered last round draw but in the first there were too many 9 pointers to make it worth it. second one he didn't see the point
got boros last one. went 1-3. probably tried to hard for very hyper aggro
Midnight pr i went 2-2. Went Golgari and got no help from my packs. Pulled 2 Vindicator and no cards to support them. Was forced to play some janky RG deck. Everyone was amused with how bad my card pool was.
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
It did do exactly that. I didn't go to the pre-release, but did do a sim with some friends at home and we ultimately just settled on trading around to get around the seeded pack issue. That one pack being geared towards one guild didn't guarantee that the pool would be in that guilds favor.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I had the opposite experience, tbh. My pool was a seeded pack of pretty synergistic Dimir cards and an Etrata, a mix of good-ish to amazing black and blue common and uncommon cards, one Boros bomb, and some red burn, then nothing but okay to trash cards in the other colours.
If I'd started with an Izzet seed of similar quality and the same boosters, I could have run an okay Jeskai deck, but also if I'd gotten Nightveils rather than Arboretum Elemental or Silent Dart in my boosters, if Plaguecrafter or Discovery//Dispersal had been in my pool rather than my prizes, or tbh if I'd played better in general (maybe), I'd probably have gone 3-1 rather than 2-1-1.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Ended up with Izzet (arguably the absolute worst seeded pack ever).
Ended up playing any color but not blue, welcome to Guild Gates and Chromatic Lantern.
Had a ton of removal and the mana base kinda worked out, the deck simply wasnt crazy fast and had no crazy bomb rares that win on their own.
If it worked out, great, if the opponent simply throws in the nut bombs, GG
And with like all the 2 color + double splash decks, at some point your colors just dont come together (even if 1 measly guild gate fixes already 2 colors, and a Chromatic Lantern does the trick too).
----
So yea, the format is filled to the brink with hard removal spells in every color combination and even has a bunch of mass removal against small creatures, so the decks that are good, become CRAZY good, while the normi decks just 1for1 everything and hope they stick something to the board that survives.
Most of my opponents had a bunch of card advantage cards in the sideboard and by including them pretty much won all the games after i beat them.
4-2-0 for me at the end, losing to some nut boros draws with Aurelia and friends and color screwing around.
The set should work much better in draft, when you can actually collect the cards that only work in specific decks late and build an actual functional deck without being plain lucky to get the cards in the first place.
I went 4-0 with Dimir at my prerelease - It was a pretty stacked deck. My final match was a mirror against a very subpar Dimir deck that had gone 3-0 up to that point. Dimir is monstrously overpowered in sealed.
1-2 in a solo prerelease playing Dimir splash red, my deck was just too slow compared to the Boros-heavy field.
2-1 in a 2HG prelease playing Boros with my partner as Dimir, mentoring Dimir's smaller creatures was very effective. (Our loss was round 3 when both of us got mana flooded.)
I had a great time, it’s my first ever prerelease event. I went with Selesnya on this one and did okay. I ended up splashing in a little black to justify playing a trophy. There were two cards that gave me fits (surprisingly), Disinformation Campaign and March of the Multitudes. I had a couple game breaker cards waiting for the right time and ended up getting them discarded by DC. And MOTM was a bomb on a few of my rounds with a combo of the unicorn with the +1/+1 anthem effect when attacking. And I will say this, surveil is a legit mechanic, simply awesome. All in all, super fun!
After finishing first in Amonkhet prerelease, second in HoD, first in Ixalan, first in Rivals, sixth in Dominaria and again first in Core 2019, it had to come to an end once. And boy, it did.
It was a regular trainwreck.
I have chosen Dimir as my kit, as I felt that Dimir is the least dependent on making your deck around the mechanic. You just use surveil for filtering and get to your good stuff.
The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No, really, a steaming pile of card c**p. No bombs in my colors, not even any good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame, Necrotic Wound), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages (two Devious Cover-Ups really do not help). Nightveil Predator? Heck no.
Literally the best things I had was a pair of Watcher in the Mist...
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination. From that, three Undercity Uprisings, two Rhizome Lurchers, etc. But again, I did not have even a friggin' Passwall Adept to push them through.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have the counters, removal and bombs I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, Nightveil Predator etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
I went with Golgari. The person sitting next to me during deck building got Assassin's Trophy as his promo as well as another one in one of his packs. Everyone was immediately jealous, but I was just happy that someone was actually able to have that happen (even if it wasn't me).
Went Selesnya and then 4-0. The pool didn't feel overwhelming but was just so efficient, solid creatures + boosts + removal, that I rolled through, not even losing a game. The lifegain was real, as I ended 3 or 4 games with over 30 life (1 mana 1/1 birds with lifelink are fun and every 1/1 token gains life.). I had a good time of course. It reminded me of M19 in that there didn't feel like there were tons of bombs that finished games, but that synergy and efficiency pulled through over flashy.
Literally eight seconds after we finished cracking all six packs, the store announced that they were mistaken, and they did have Dimir decks for people who preregistered, of which I was one. So that felt kinda crappy, but again, no one else had Dimir either so I felt like I had less to worry about.
We open a solid pool and build to plan, with two strong, consistent decks.
Round one, we were in a very strong position to win when we go to time and draw. We get paired down for round two.
Round two I have to mull three times down to five, but we actually pull out of the hole and are in a good position when one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and then the game is over.
Round three, we're ahead and not doing too bad. Then one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and the game is basically over, it just takes another seven turns of us not interacting with them in a meaningful way.
Now we're 0-2-1 going into round 4. So we drop and go home.
Overall we had fun, and I feel like our decks were very strong (we had four Dead Weight and 4 Prey Upon in our pool. We couldn't even run all of them). But we lost to double Nightveil Predator twice in a row, in a room where not a single person opened a Dimir seeded pack.
And all day that was the only card that felt bad to play against. I think in a Limited environment, at uncommon, Nightveil Predator is an absolutely toxic card. And I feared that would be the case going in, and I wasn't really surprised to find out it was true.
Don't get me wrong, GRN feels like a pretty fun environment in general, and my stack of surveil cards + Etrata did some work, but if your opponent has enough support to run Nightveil and you don't pull or pick them, you're getting rolled.
Art is life itself.
And I guess it's worth reiterating that we did still have a good time. I agree that overall the set is fun, and there are a lot of great card interactions that were enjoyable to see. Mentoring my partner's creatures, for instance, was something that not a lot of people expected.
I just thought that the situation we encountered was a little silly.
In Saturday's 2HG event, I went Izzet, and my cousin had to use Boros when the store ran out of Selesnya for the event. Our pool for Izzet was fan-freaking-tastic. My deck ran sixteen pieces of removal, including two Expansion // Explosion and five Capture Spheres. Getting two Goblin Electromancer in my own packs helped, too. My cousin ran a Naya deck that splashed green for Trostani Discordant and had a pair of Dawn of Hope.
We went 3-0. Under a withering barrage of removal, our life total never dropped below 15.
Noon pr i went Dimir. Better card pool but still not as good as others i had seen. Went 2-1 and then split with R4 opponent to ensure with both got a 5th pack because i had been up for 36 straight hours.
R2 my opponent and i both misread a card which led to my winning the match (which he later realized after R3). So during R4 as a gesture of good faith i gave him 2 of my packs because i dont like winning that way.
So in total i cracked 19 packs. Promos were etrata and mausoleum secrets. Pulled 2 Charnel Troll, 1 Phoenix, 3 Vindicator, 2 Risk Factor, 1 Steam Kin, 1 Cyclops,1 Quasiduplicate, 1 Response/Resurgence, 1 Knight of Autumn & 1 Sacred Foundry.
I bought a playset of GRN so i was really hoping to get more value from the prerelease to trade for Ixalan/Dominaria cards i missed
Picked Dimir, but as soon as I saw Vraska, there was no question on a green splash. Very pleased with this deck.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
While I think I managed to scrap together a decent deck, I had very few ways to stop aggressive assaults, and I ended up against 2 Dimir decks, 1 Boros and 1 Izzet. The Boros player absolutely demolished me, and one of the Dimir players I faced opened 2 Dimir Spybugs and a Kraul Swarm. Three of the four games I had to side out both Collar the Culprits 'cuz they were literally useless. Had I faced a Golgari or a Selesnya opponent, I'm pretty sure I would fare batter, but alas.
As for noteworthy singletons, I opened a Lazav, the Multifarious and a Hatchery Spider, but with actual zero other Surveil/Graveyard cards (not even the Catbro or the Rat), I couldn't make anything useful out them.
opened Izzet first one. Got Niv in a pack and firemind's research as my promo. went 3-1. loss being in last round
got dimir second one, can't remmeber my promo but went 3-1. ended up playing sultai splashing red for Ral. didn't think deck was good but went 3-1, loss being in last round again.
both these events I offered last round draw but in the first there were too many 9 pointers to make it worth it. second one he didn't see the point
got boros last one. went 1-3. probably tried to hard for very hyper aggro
It did do exactly that. I didn't go to the pre-release, but did do a sim with some friends at home and we ultimately just settled on trading around to get around the seeded pack issue. That one pack being geared towards one guild didn't guarantee that the pool would be in that guilds favor.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
If I'd started with an Izzet seed of similar quality and the same boosters, I could have run an okay Jeskai deck, but also if I'd gotten Nightveils rather than Arboretum Elemental or Silent Dart in my boosters, if Plaguecrafter or Discovery//Dispersal had been in my pool rather than my prizes, or tbh if I'd played better in general (maybe), I'd probably have gone 3-1 rather than 2-1-1.
Art is life itself.
Ended up with Izzet (arguably the absolute worst seeded pack ever).
Ended up playing any color but not blue, welcome to Guild Gates and Chromatic Lantern.
Had a ton of removal and the mana base kinda worked out, the deck simply wasnt crazy fast and had no crazy bomb rares that win on their own.
If it worked out, great, if the opponent simply throws in the nut bombs, GG
And with like all the 2 color + double splash decks, at some point your colors just dont come together (even if 1 measly guild gate fixes already 2 colors, and a Chromatic Lantern does the trick too).
----
So yea, the format is filled to the brink with hard removal spells in every color combination and even has a bunch of mass removal against small creatures, so the decks that are good, become CRAZY good, while the normi decks just 1for1 everything and hope they stick something to the board that survives.
Most of my opponents had a bunch of card advantage cards in the sideboard and by including them pretty much won all the games after i beat them.
4-2-0 for me at the end, losing to some nut boros draws with Aurelia and friends and color screwing around.
The set should work much better in draft, when you can actually collect the cards that only work in specific decks late and build an actual functional deck without being plain lucky to get the cards in the first place.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
2-1 in a 2HG prelease playing Boros with my partner as Dimir, mentoring Dimir's smaller creatures was very effective. (Our loss was round 3 when both of us got mana flooded.)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
It was a regular trainwreck.
I have chosen Dimir as my kit, as I felt that Dimir is the least dependent on making your deck around the mechanic. You just use surveil for filtering and get to your good stuff.
The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No, really, a steaming pile of card c**p. No bombs in my colors, not even any good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame, Necrotic Wound), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages (two Devious Cover-Ups really do not help). Nightveil Predator? Heck no.
Literally the best things I had was a pair of Watcher in the Mist...
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination. From that, three Undercity Uprisings, two Rhizome Lurchers, etc. But again, I did not have even a friggin' Passwall Adept to push them through.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have the counters, removal and bombs I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, Nightveil Predator etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
I hope I'll like the drafts more
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I got Underrealm Lich as my promo. I also got Vraska, Golgari Queen, Gruesome Menagerie and a foil Izoni, Thousand-Eyed that I played in my deck. My other rares were Watery Grave, Ionize and Drowned Secrets. My deck was pretty good and a lot of fun to play, but didn't win much. I was 1-2 going into the last round and I got paired up against the guy with the 2 Assassin's Trophies. He won both games.
BWTokens
GCollected Stompany
BWGUSeance Insanity
URUR Bloo