Linvala, the Preserver got me two wins, and my two losses were to her... Very surprised by her performance, but unlikely to make a dent in Standard or anything other than limited. Which still makes me cry on the inside.
Mine were meh.So I got 1 wastes out of both sealed that I played and others got around 1-2 in their sealed pools,so colorless might not have enough support in sealed I'm guessing.Did anyone else have that problem? One thing though is I did get those other lands that make colorless to offset the problem,at least for my first sealed,the second one not so much.
Not us, too many, still had a meh session though. Two headed giant, combined colorless mana pool available: 3 wastes, 2 crumbling vestiges, corrupted crossroads, unknown shores, spawning bed, 2 Hedron crawlers, a cultivator drone, eldrazi skyspawner, 3 scion summoner, a grave birthing and a mirrorpool.
And sadly the best use for seemed to be blinding drone or havoc sower. I had enough mana to fire essence depleter a bunch, never made it out, Kozilek's Pathfinder ability in THG is kind of a waste of mana.
I played UW and my partner played GB. I straggled in to play two headed giant and needed a partner. So did a young kid. So I got to dominate the decisions and we went X-0. I gave almost all the cards to the kid and kept an oath of nissa. Fun times.
Ended up going UR Surge (forced it, if I'm being honest) with my partner on BW Eldrazi. Got utterly stomped round 1 by a control deck supporting a ramp deck that went way over the top of us after we both kept hands low on action (something like 5 out of my first 7 draws were lands in spite of the fact that I was only running 16, which didn't exactly help) and didn't have the threats to hang with their big Eldrazi without 3-for-1-ing ourselves. Then we somehow proceeded to run the table from that point on, taking our next 3 to get prizes anyway, including a match that was way closer than it needed to be because I didn't know that Fall of the Titans could target both opponents for double damage until after the match: I had to luck out on Dimensional Infiltrator hitting a land with my one colorless source to stop Felidar Sovereign's Lifelink from pulling them back from the brink (Zada's Commando's Cohort ability did real work in that game when I got it out with literally the only other Ally in my deck).
...and then I got to end my final game by killing our opponents from 13 life with the somewhat-excessive sequence of Stormchaser Mage -> Slip Through Space on my partner's Kozilek's Pathfinder (which had been a blocker for most of the game for fear of the Containment Membrane that had been slapped on it) -> trigger Pyromancer's Assault to send at their face -> draw into Containment Membrane on their Akoum Hellkite -> Expedite on Stormchaser just for the added prowess trigger -> draw into another Membrane which my partner convinced me to also throw onto the Hellkite for kicks -> swing with a 5/7 flyer, a 5/5 unblockable, and then pick any number of available ways to deal the last 1 damage. That was the most Izzet moment I've had since...well, since the last time I got to play Mizzix in EDH, actually. It felt good.
(Containment Membrane underperformed for me most of the day - almost all of the actual threats worth playing it on that I had the chance to use them against had vigilance. Essence Depleter did some serious work when my partner managed to get it out, especially in the nailbiter third round. Jwar Isle Avenger was exactly as good as I expected it to be and I wish there had been more than one in our combined pool, and Dimensional Infiltrator did work getting in a lot of early tick damage - our best games were the ones where I just dropped both of those early and went to town for a couple of turns.)
Pulls from the prize packs: Hissing Quagmire, Eldrazi Mimic, Eldrazi Obligator, Oath of Nissa, Linvala, the Preserver...and the literal worst rare in the set. Linvala wasn't one of the mythics I particularly wanted (I already have plenty of high-costed, high-rarity angels that I never ended up playing anywhere: at least some of the others are actually good in EDH), and it's certainly doesn't measure up to the White mythic in my BFZ prize packs (Gideon), but at least most of the prize pulls are actually playable cards (particularly the Oath). Might have enough pieces to start piecing together a casual Eldrazi deck now.
All in all, not a bad prerelease, considering how I thought it was going to go after I opened my packs and especially after our first round.
Wasn't impressed with oath to the gatewatch sealed. Didn't have much fun, got crappy cards in my pool. I generally love pre releases but it's no fun when you get cards that are so mixed in the pool it's hard to build a good deck. Lost to all "bomb" cards. Was at an event with 14 people and went 2-2 and still got 11th place somehow. Hopefully shadows of innistrad pre release is good or I prob won't do them again.
My prerelease was fun. The format was a lot faster than I (perhaps foolishly) anticipated. I initially went RB Eldrazi then switched to RW Eldrazi / Allies when the black wasn't cutting it. The rare lands, the Allies, and the Eldrazi were all fun to play with and against. Went 3-1, losing to UR Eldrazi Fliers.
I need some help. Would someone please make suggestions to improve my strategy for Prereleases, which is: Utilizing as many bombs, kill spells, fliers, and fatties as possible, build the best 40 card deck with 2-2.5 colors, a reasonable curve, and 17-18 mana sources. In prerelease game play where combat tricks run rampant, only tap out during your first main phase if it will affect your combat step. After round one, if the weaker of your two colors might better be replaced with another color from your sideboard, go ahead and switch the colors out. Then build a second / backup deck out of your remaining sideboard cards for the rare possibility that the second deck's strategy might be a better match up.
The way I build in sealed is a bit silly, but honestly works for me and if I don't top it's because of bad misplays 80% of the time.
All I do is crack my packs, check the rares and uncommons, then move to the next. Once I'm done opening, I'll find generally two, potentially three, colors where my biggest bombs are and proceed to build around them, unless I opened no bombs in which case I build around the uncommons. I go through my piles of commons and pull out any playable cards of in my colors, then painstakingly pick out cards until I'm at 24 cards and add in 16 land. I personally always seem to get flooded with 17 and shorted at 15, it's just my magic number. Always check how many of what sort of spells you have, too. I'm a really swingy player and usually try to play 16-18 decent creatures and some combat tricks, if available. Always check your curve too, make sure you're not playing too many 5+ cmc spells that will oftentimes fester in your hand forever.
Went 3-1, 3-1, 1-2 drop during the win-a-box, 2-2 in 2HG. Opened around 40 packs total, with a lot of value rares and mythics (including one each of the big 4), so I came up ahead and had a lot of fun.
Best moment: facing down an army of allies during 2HG and me and my ally top-decking, on the exact same turn, Kozilek's Return and Rising Miasma. We burst out laughing! We still lost the match, but it was fun.
My "blessing" also continued to work: when people complain to me that they never open Expeditions, they do so during the event. Two regulars at my LGS did complain, and both opened expeditions: a Fetid Heath and an Eye of Ugin. By my count, that's the 4th and 5th time that happened.
As far as value cards go, I did utterly terrible. I got nothing that excited me. Nothing. With that said, I was able to put together a very strong BW/Colorless deck for limited. My promo card was Remorseless Punishment and I pulled a second one from a pack. That is a card I doubt I would ever put in constructed but worked great in limited. I had tons of removal so I could keep the board pretty clear. And if you play that card on an empty board, it's a beating. It usually ended up as discard 2 and 5 damage which I would pay 5 mana for any day. My other rares were Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Eldrazi Displacer, Endbringer, Desolation Twin(which I didn't run), and I think Conduit of Ruin (which I also didn't run). I had lots of removal with Grip of Desolation, Immolating Glare, Make a Stand (acted as Psuedo Removal lots of times), Oblivion Strike, Sheer Drop, and Stasis Snare. Endbringer lived up to his name and typically ended games quickly. Ayli was a great value creature. Eldrazi Displacer rarely got to live long enough to take over a board, but he's solid. 3 mana instant speed to kill any token creatures, get bonus triggers from enter the battlefield triggers or remove a blocker is very nice. I ended up going 4-1 with my one loss being to the guy who won the event. Honestly, I'd put that at a 50/50 toss up to who ever drew better. I had fun at the event, but with 10 packs (6 from sealed, 4 from prize pool) opened and not getting anything that excites me leaves me feeling disappointed.
I could probably have won the match I lost, but I forgot about the trigger on my Tajuru Beastmaster two turns in a row, and as such didn't make what would have been profitable attacks those turns. I won a surprising amount of games by just stalling the board and draining my opponents to death with Essence Depleter and Zulaport Chainmage.
In 2hg, my friend and I went 4-0-1 with 28 teams, coming in at 2nd due to tiebreakers. I played a close to ideal BR devoid deck, with my friend on a solid U/W goodstuff deck. I don't remember the his exact list, but highlights include a Quarantine Field, Isolation Zone, Spell Shrivel, Void Shatter and Reflector Mage.
My decklist was as follows:
While it would still have been an extremely solid deck without Fall of the Titans, Fall took it WAY over the top. Several of our wins came from my partner triggering surge while holding up countermagic, allowing me to fireball our opponents for anywhere between 12-18 damage. The card is just absurd in 2hg. Our only draw came when our opponents made me discard both Fall and Barrage Tyrant and even then we were still close to winning when we went to time. This with my friend's Gravity Negator giving my Bane of Bala Ged flying.
I just shook my damn head. (His pool was atrocious though as his only bomb (Linvala) was supported by a white pool of exactly 4 cards.
My pool did what it was supposed to. I went W/R with my planewalkers putting in work, and the Phoenix being an annoyance to my opponent. In sealed to me the most valuable card was Seer's Lantern. That card put in work every time it was played.
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
Opened an ok black Eldrazi deck with pretty good removal.
2 minutes until start, I suddenly switched to a RW Ally deck.
Had Masterwork sword, Oath of Gideon, Allied Reinforcements, Cliffside Lookout, Zada Commando and lots of white Allies.
Put in a whole pile of combat tricks: Searing light, Sheer Drop, Reality Hemorrhage Mighty Leap, Angelic Gift, Lithomancer Focus, Tandem Tactics and Brute Strength
Ended up building super fast deck with only 15 lands. Finished 4-2-1 with the second loss being in last round to top 4 when I drew lands on 5 of 6 turns (with 4 already on board) just needing to push through 3 damage.
The only game I had real mana problems was when opponent exiled my reality spires on turn 5 and I couldn't find another 4th mana source that game and had no mountains.
Tons of opponents were running Big eldrazi and getting out fast put enough pressure on them that I could use combat tricks as removal when they were making blocks.
I was playing 4 colors splashing white for eldrazi displacer, playing lots of devoid eldrazi and running 3 unknown shores. went 2-0-1
first match i played against a very savvy opponent who drafted some nasty red cards. lots of creatures attacking and multiple support 2 threatens. went to a draw
next 2 rounds i went 4-0 because i grinded out my opponents with some nasty combos. would usually ramp up t3-t4 from beyond, that eldrazi that gives unblockable and card draw through damage, displacer and greenwarden. i would boardstall, play greenwarden and get removal, stall, then use displacer to bounce greenwarden and gain insurmontable advantage
I could grind a game out pretty well with Displacer, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Eyeless Watcher, but I had no real big bombs to seal the deal, nor did I have removal for theirs. Man, I wish that Watcher could have been a Brood Monitor.
Hoping to do some launch events this weekend, schedule permitting.
The prerelease was mostly intended as a bonding moment for me and my fiancée.
We mashed pools, loaded up her deck with all the bombs, and then I cobbled together a deck from the remains that was best suited for getting her to said bombs.
3. Thought-Knot Seer, Terrible rare considering it doesn't have flash.
This strikes me as a very odd complaint. MtGGoldfish has Thought-Knot Seer as the most valuable Rare in the set and the 4th most valuable card over all. Everyone at my shop is trying to build the Modern B/x Eldrazi deck so these were aggressively traded for. Whether or not you think it's bad, lots of people want to try it in Modern (and possibly Standard), so if you think it is bad and will go down in the longrun, just get rid of it while it's high. But opening a $15 card in four packs is pure profit (at my shop this would be $10 in store credit), so if this is grounds for complaint I'd like to have your luck. I went home with 11 packs on Saturday and my most valuable single card was World Breaker... a $7 sideboard card for Standard Ramp decks. I would love to have had a "terrible rare" that was worth twice as much in its place.
Anyway, as far as value went my prerelease was pretty bad, but I tend to focus on the gameplay instead and consider the money spent the admission for entertainment. I went with my fiancee, who doesn't play a lot but seems to have a knack for opening money, and since we share our collection that made up for the fact that I opened nothing of note. Her 1st promo was Nissa (which was perforated by the packaging process but the person we traded it to didn't seem to care), and she opened a Kozilek in each pool (we went to a 5-round-cut-to-top-8-draft on Saturday and a 2-round skins casual on Sunday).
Saturday was nuts for me; my promo was Deceiver of Form backed up by two Endbringers. I had three Wastes but I only played two of them, because I had enough stuff to search for basics and had two Seer's Lanterns (which is bonkers in Sealed!), so I wasn't too concerned about making my colorless requirements. My pool also had a pair of Sweep Aways, a couple Tajuru Pathwardens, and a Guardian of Tazeem so I ended up going with a blue/green control thing, slowing down my opponent until I could afford to play my big beasts and then just step on them. The plan worked fairly well -- I went 3-1-1, losing to a very fast aggro deck and drawing a game that I probably could have won if I would have played a little faster. I was very pleased with Deceiver of Form, which even if you have nothing else on the board is an 8/8 for 7 that allows you to scry once a turn. And between the Guardian of Tazeem and the other tap/bounce stuff, I could keep my opponent from attacking or get rid of blockers to close the game. Both times I was able to resolve the second Endbringer, the move cemented what up until that point had been anyone's game.
I just barely made the cut to top 8 and, sitting down to draft, noticed that green was very open and blue was kind of open (I 2nd and 3rd picked Sweep Away, which is my new favorite pseduo-removal, pack one), so I basically did the same thing again with a smaller top-end. I really think green was being ignored because of how bad it was in BfZ -- the guy to my right, who I know is a very good player, had to read Nissa's Vengeance when I played it against him, even though he was the one who passed it to me. I do think Elemental Uprising is a trap after trying to play with it a couple times, but Nissa's Vengeance is the real deal and there are enough good common creatures in Oath that you can build a solid deck and take the few good cards in Battle to round it out. I went 2-0 in the draft and then we split due to mutual fatigue. My prize packs were utter garbage, as I mentioned, but I had a fun time and most of the games were very close and very interesting.
My pool was pretty bad on Sunday, for which I blame the Two-Headed Giant push. My promo was Tyrant of Valakut and I opened a Fall of the Titans; the Tyrant seems basically unplayable outside of 2HG, and I almost cut it until I decided that running two colors with mediocre cards was better than splashing a third with little-to-no fixing. Fall of the Titans is playable at least, but it seemed whenever I could cast it was because I needed to remove a creature immediately and didn't have the mana to dink around with setting up Surge (side note: "save mana on this card if you already spent mana" seems to me to be a particularly useless mechanic outside of 2HG. The only card I like with Surge in a 2-player game is the Reckless Bushwacker, because there are enough two- and three-drops in the format that you could reliable drop him with a friend and swing for a lot).
Anyway, my blue and red had some decent removal and small threats, while my white was wretched (Damn you, Stone Haven Outfitter!), my black was bad and my green was mediocre. I really didn't have quite enough playables to be competitive, but it was a casual vibe, so I just shuffled up my U/R aggro thing and went 1-1. What I learned: Reality Smasher is quite the limited bomb.
All in all, I had fun and think this is a good limited environment. In both of my pools I had multiple rares that I simply couldn't play at all, but there was enough great stuff at common and uncommon that I didn't care. Much much better than my BfZ prerelease where I almost dropped the solo event due to having such a bad pool, and where the 2HG games were some of the grindiest and most boring games of Magic I've ever seen. I think when to pick your colorless sources/bombs adds an interesting texture to draft (I was surprised to see Seer's Lantern wheel; thought for sure they'd be snatched up); I just wish I had a more open schedule so I could draft more often this season.
Linvala, the Preserver got me two wins, and my two losses were to her... Very surprised by her performance, but unlikely to make a dent in Standard or anything other than limited. Which still makes me cry on the inside.
she's such a bomb. Played against her like 3 times in 3 prereleases.
Went 4-0 in my first with Red Green midrange I guess. Either won because of misplays, mana screw or new players all event
went 2-1 in the sole 2HG event I did. Got the bye, lost a tight match then round 3 we won due to us both topdecking our only outs
in my 3rd I went 1 and 3. Suffered due to a lack of removal in my RG deck
Midnight prerelease at my shop saw 75 people show up. Ended up going seven rounds, lasting until 8 AM. As usual, my biggest problem was that no matter how great my cards are, my play skill falls off when I'm plopping facedown on the table from exhaustion. I should take up cocaine like everybody else seems to. Went 2-2-3, squeaked out of the top 30.
Pulled several decent bombs without much synergy, so I built BUGC goodstuff. Amazingly, mana was the least of my worries since I pulled several multi-lands, mana rocks, and green land tutors. My two biggest problems were lack of removal and lack of card draw. Every game was a board stall won by whoever had the biggest evasive threat.
On the whole, I had fun, got some nice cards, and I've certainly been to worse prereleases. I just wish that my shop wasn't so good that it drives every other shop in the state out of business. You need a crowbar just to get in the place.
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Needless to say my limited pool wasn't that great lol. My only big creature was Kozilek's Pathfinder, and the colorless or devoid support wasn't there. Ended going UR with a Stormchaser Mage and some decent surge cards. Went 1-3, won the first game by some unbelievable luck (using Mirrorpool on my opponent's Bane of Bala Ghed after I Turn Againsted it) besides that my games were ridiculously one sided. Got a Kozilek's Return in my pack though, so not all terrible. Fun day was fun overall.
Best pulls I had were Linvala and Ulamog, everything else was junk. I barely had enough white to make it work, but I did use Linvala. That card alone essentially won me three as I was lucky enough to get her out fairly early most of the time, (went 3-1) and the one I lost? Yep, the other guy popped out a Linvala at the worst possible time (for me) and he got the token and the life gain. So, that card was much stronger than I had actually expected. Almost wondering if I should buy a few more while they're pretty cheap.
Linvala, the Preserver got me two wins, and my two losses were to her... Very surprised by her performance, but unlikely to make a dent in Standard or anything other than limited. Which still makes me cry on the inside.
Not us, too many, still had a meh session though. Two headed giant, combined colorless mana pool available: 3 wastes, 2 crumbling vestiges, corrupted crossroads, unknown shores, spawning bed, 2 Hedron crawlers, a cultivator drone, eldrazi skyspawner, 3 scion summoner, a grave birthing and a mirrorpool.
And sadly the best use for seemed to be blinding drone or havoc sower. I had enough mana to fire essence depleter a bunch, never made it out, Kozilek's Pathfinder ability in THG is kind of a waste of mana.
Ended up going UR Surge (forced it, if I'm being honest) with my partner on BW Eldrazi. Got utterly stomped round 1 by a control deck supporting a ramp deck that went way over the top of us after we both kept hands low on action (something like 5 out of my first 7 draws were lands in spite of the fact that I was only running 16, which didn't exactly help) and didn't have the threats to hang with their big Eldrazi without 3-for-1-ing ourselves. Then we somehow proceeded to run the table from that point on, taking our next 3 to get prizes anyway, including a match that was way closer than it needed to be because I didn't know that Fall of the Titans could target both opponents for double damage until after the match: I had to luck out on Dimensional Infiltrator hitting a land with my one colorless source to stop Felidar Sovereign's Lifelink from pulling them back from the brink (Zada's Commando's Cohort ability did real work in that game when I got it out with literally the only other Ally in my deck).
...and then I got to end my final game by killing our opponents from 13 life with the somewhat-excessive sequence of Stormchaser Mage -> Slip Through Space on my partner's Kozilek's Pathfinder (which had been a blocker for most of the game for fear of the Containment Membrane that had been slapped on it) -> trigger Pyromancer's Assault to send at their face -> draw into Containment Membrane on their Akoum Hellkite -> Expedite on Stormchaser just for the added prowess trigger -> draw into another Membrane which my partner convinced me to also throw onto the Hellkite for kicks -> swing with a 5/7 flyer, a 5/5 unblockable, and then pick any number of available ways to deal the last 1 damage. That was the most Izzet moment I've had since...well, since the last time I got to play Mizzix in EDH, actually. It felt good.
(Containment Membrane underperformed for me most of the day - almost all of the actual threats worth playing it on that I had the chance to use them against had vigilance. Essence Depleter did some serious work when my partner managed to get it out, especially in the nailbiter third round. Jwar Isle Avenger was exactly as good as I expected it to be and I wish there had been more than one in our combined pool, and Dimensional Infiltrator did work getting in a lot of early tick damage - our best games were the ones where I just dropped both of those early and went to town for a couple of turns.)
Pulls from the prize packs: Hissing Quagmire, Eldrazi Mimic, Eldrazi Obligator, Oath of Nissa, Linvala, the Preserver...and the literal worst rare in the set. Linvala wasn't one of the mythics I particularly wanted (I already have plenty of high-costed, high-rarity angels that I never ended up playing anywhere: at least some of the others are actually good in EDH), and it's certainly doesn't measure up to the White mythic in my BFZ prize packs (Gideon), but at least most of the prize pulls are actually playable cards (particularly the Oath). Might have enough pieces to start piecing together a casual Eldrazi deck now.
All in all, not a bad prerelease, considering how I thought it was going to go after I opened my packs and especially after our first round.
The way I build in sealed is a bit silly, but honestly works for me and if I don't top it's because of bad misplays 80% of the time.
All I do is crack my packs, check the rares and uncommons, then move to the next. Once I'm done opening, I'll find generally two, potentially three, colors where my biggest bombs are and proceed to build around them, unless I opened no bombs in which case I build around the uncommons. I go through my piles of commons and pull out any playable cards of in my colors, then painstakingly pick out cards until I'm at 24 cards and add in 16 land. I personally always seem to get flooded with 17 and shorted at 15, it's just my magic number. Always check how many of what sort of spells you have, too. I'm a really swingy player and usually try to play 16-18 decent creatures and some combat tricks, if available. Always check your curve too, make sure you're not playing too many 5+ cmc spells that will oftentimes fester in your hand forever.
Best moment: facing down an army of allies during 2HG and me and my ally top-decking, on the exact same turn, Kozilek's Return and Rising Miasma. We burst out laughing! We still lost the match, but it was fun.
My "blessing" also continued to work: when people complain to me that they never open Expeditions, they do so during the event. Two regulars at my LGS did complain, and both opened expeditions: a Fetid Heath and an Eye of Ugin. By my count, that's the 4th and 5th time that happened.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
1x Rot Shambler
1x Snapping Gnarlid
1x Essence Depleter
1x Vampire Envoy
1x Vile Redeemer
1x Netcaster Spider
1x Scion Summoner
1x Zulaport Chainmage
1x Saddleback Lagac
2x Seed Guardian
1x Kalastria Nightwatch
1x Tajuru Pathwarden
1x Tajuru Beastmaster
1x Baloth Null
1x Plated Crusher
1x Unnatural Endurance
1x Visions of Brutality
1x Complete Disregard
1x Hedron Archive
1x Mire's Malice
2x Oblivion Strike
Lands
9x Forest
7x Swamp
1x Crumbling Vestige
I could probably have won the match I lost, but I forgot about the trigger on my Tajuru Beastmaster two turns in a row, and as such didn't make what would have been profitable attacks those turns. I won a surprising amount of games by just stalling the board and draining my opponents to death with Essence Depleter and Zulaport Chainmage.
In 2hg, my friend and I went 4-0-1 with 28 teams, coming in at 2nd due to tiebreakers. I played a close to ideal BR devoid deck, with my friend on a solid U/W goodstuff deck. I don't remember the his exact list, but highlights include a Quarantine Field, Isolation Zone, Spell Shrivel, Void Shatter and Reflector Mage.
My decklist was as follows:
1x Kozilek's Sentinel
1x Slaughter Drone
1x Sky Scourer
1x Eldrazi Mimic
1x Flayer Drone
1x Nettle Drone
1x Matter Reshaper
1x Dominator Drone
1x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Maw of Kozilek
1x Havoc Sower
1x Akoum Firebird
1x Barrage Tyrant
1x Walker of the Wastes
1x Bane of Bala Ged
1x Outnumber
1x Reality Hemorrhage
1x Complete Disregard
1x Touch of the Void
1x Devour in Flames
1x Seer's Lantern
1x Swarm Surge
1x Press into Service
1x Fall of the Titans
6x Swamp
8x Mountain
2x Wastes
1x Cinder Barrens
While it would still have been an extremely solid deck without Fall of the Titans, Fall took it WAY over the top. Several of our wins came from my partner triggering surge while holding up countermagic, allowing me to fireball our opponents for anywhere between 12-18 damage. The card is just absurd in 2hg. Our only draw came when our opponents made me discard both Fall and Barrage Tyrant and even then we were still close to winning when we went to time. This with my friend's Gravity Negator giving my Bane of Bala Ged flying.
Then I looked to my right and homeboy opened an Expedition Wooded Foothills and an Expedition Mystic Gate.
I just shook my damn head. (His pool was atrocious though as his only bomb (Linvala) was supported by a white pool of exactly 4 cards.
My pool did what it was supposed to. I went W/R with my planewalkers putting in work, and the Phoenix being an annoyance to my opponent. In sealed to me the most valuable card was Seer's Lantern. That card put in work every time it was played.
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
2 minutes until start, I suddenly switched to a RW Ally deck.
Had Masterwork sword, Oath of Gideon, Allied Reinforcements, Cliffside Lookout, Zada Commando and lots of white Allies.
Put in a whole pile of combat tricks: Searing light, Sheer Drop, Reality Hemorrhage Mighty Leap, Angelic Gift, Lithomancer Focus, Tandem Tactics and Brute Strength
Ended up building super fast deck with only 15 lands. Finished 4-2-1 with the second loss being in last round to top 4 when I drew lands on 5 of 6 turns (with 4 already on board) just needing to push through 3 damage.
The only game I had real mana problems was when opponent exiled my reality spires on turn 5 and I couldn't find another 4th mana source that game and had no mountains.
Tons of opponents were running Big eldrazi and getting out fast put enough pressure on them that I could use combat tricks as removal when they were making blocks.
first match i played against a very savvy opponent who drafted some nasty red cards. lots of creatures attacking and multiple support 2 threatens. went to a draw
next 2 rounds i went 4-0 because i grinded out my opponents with some nasty combos. would usually ramp up t3-t4 from beyond, that eldrazi that gives unblockable and card draw through damage, displacer and greenwarden. i would boardstall, play greenwarden and get removal, stall, then use displacer to bounce greenwarden and gain insurmontable advantage
I could grind a game out pretty well with Displacer, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Eyeless Watcher, but I had no real big bombs to seal the deal, nor did I have removal for theirs. Man, I wish that Watcher could have been a Brood Monitor.
Hoping to do some launch events this weekend, schedule permitting.
WU TBD | UB Wrexial | BR The Scorpion God | RG Xenagos | GW Katilda
WB TBD | UR TBD | BG Virtus & Gorm | RW Feather | GU Koma
GWU TBD | WUB Sefris | UBR TBD | BRG Lord Windgrace | RGW TBD
WBG TBD | URW Brallin & Shabraz | BGU Kadena | RWB Edgar | GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
WUBR TBD | UBRG Thrasios & Vial Smasher | BRGW Saskia | RGWU TBD | GWUB TBD
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon | C Kozilek
We mashed pools, loaded up her deck with all the bombs, and then I cobbled together a deck from the remains that was best suited for getting her to said bombs.
Then we went 3-0. Hurray!
This strikes me as a very odd complaint. MtGGoldfish has Thought-Knot Seer as the most valuable Rare in the set and the 4th most valuable card over all. Everyone at my shop is trying to build the Modern B/x Eldrazi deck so these were aggressively traded for. Whether or not you think it's bad, lots of people want to try it in Modern (and possibly Standard), so if you think it is bad and will go down in the longrun, just get rid of it while it's high. But opening a $15 card in four packs is pure profit (at my shop this would be $10 in store credit), so if this is grounds for complaint I'd like to have your luck. I went home with 11 packs on Saturday and my most valuable single card was World Breaker... a $7 sideboard card for Standard Ramp decks. I would love to have had a "terrible rare" that was worth twice as much in its place.
Anyway, as far as value went my prerelease was pretty bad, but I tend to focus on the gameplay instead and consider the money spent the admission for entertainment. I went with my fiancee, who doesn't play a lot but seems to have a knack for opening money, and since we share our collection that made up for the fact that I opened nothing of note. Her 1st promo was Nissa (which was perforated by the packaging process but the person we traded it to didn't seem to care), and she opened a Kozilek in each pool (we went to a 5-round-cut-to-top-8-draft on Saturday and a 2-round skins casual on Sunday).
Saturday was nuts for me; my promo was Deceiver of Form backed up by two Endbringers. I had three Wastes but I only played two of them, because I had enough stuff to search for basics and had two Seer's Lanterns (which is bonkers in Sealed!), so I wasn't too concerned about making my colorless requirements. My pool also had a pair of Sweep Aways, a couple Tajuru Pathwardens, and a Guardian of Tazeem so I ended up going with a blue/green control thing, slowing down my opponent until I could afford to play my big beasts and then just step on them. The plan worked fairly well -- I went 3-1-1, losing to a very fast aggro deck and drawing a game that I probably could have won if I would have played a little faster. I was very pleased with Deceiver of Form, which even if you have nothing else on the board is an 8/8 for 7 that allows you to scry once a turn. And between the Guardian of Tazeem and the other tap/bounce stuff, I could keep my opponent from attacking or get rid of blockers to close the game. Both times I was able to resolve the second Endbringer, the move cemented what up until that point had been anyone's game.
I just barely made the cut to top 8 and, sitting down to draft, noticed that green was very open and blue was kind of open (I 2nd and 3rd picked Sweep Away, which is my new favorite pseduo-removal, pack one), so I basically did the same thing again with a smaller top-end. I really think green was being ignored because of how bad it was in BfZ -- the guy to my right, who I know is a very good player, had to read Nissa's Vengeance when I played it against him, even though he was the one who passed it to me. I do think Elemental Uprising is a trap after trying to play with it a couple times, but Nissa's Vengeance is the real deal and there are enough good common creatures in Oath that you can build a solid deck and take the few good cards in Battle to round it out. I went 2-0 in the draft and then we split due to mutual fatigue. My prize packs were utter garbage, as I mentioned, but I had a fun time and most of the games were very close and very interesting.
My pool was pretty bad on Sunday, for which I blame the Two-Headed Giant push. My promo was Tyrant of Valakut and I opened a Fall of the Titans; the Tyrant seems basically unplayable outside of 2HG, and I almost cut it until I decided that running two colors with mediocre cards was better than splashing a third with little-to-no fixing. Fall of the Titans is playable at least, but it seemed whenever I could cast it was because I needed to remove a creature immediately and didn't have the mana to dink around with setting up Surge (side note: "save mana on this card if you already spent mana" seems to me to be a particularly useless mechanic outside of 2HG. The only card I like with Surge in a 2-player game is the Reckless Bushwacker, because there are enough two- and three-drops in the format that you could reliable drop him with a friend and swing for a lot).
Anyway, my blue and red had some decent removal and small threats, while my white was wretched (Damn you, Stone Haven Outfitter!), my black was bad and my green was mediocre. I really didn't have quite enough playables to be competitive, but it was a casual vibe, so I just shuffled up my U/R aggro thing and went 1-1. What I learned: Reality Smasher is quite the limited bomb.
All in all, I had fun and think this is a good limited environment. In both of my pools I had multiple rares that I simply couldn't play at all, but there was enough great stuff at common and uncommon that I didn't care. Much much better than my BfZ prerelease where I almost dropped the solo event due to having such a bad pool, and where the 2HG games were some of the grindiest and most boring games of Magic I've ever seen. I think when to pick your colorless sources/bombs adds an interesting texture to draft (I was surprised to see Seer's Lantern wheel; thought for sure they'd be snatched up); I just wish I had a more open schedule so I could draft more often this season.
she's such a bomb. Played against her like 3 times in 3 prereleases.
Went 4-0 in my first with Red Green midrange I guess. Either won because of misplays, mana screw or new players all event
went 2-1 in the sole 2HG event I did. Got the bye, lost a tight match then round 3 we won due to us both topdecking our only outs
in my 3rd I went 1 and 3. Suffered due to a lack of removal in my RG deck
Midnight prerelease at my shop saw 75 people show up. Ended up going seven rounds, lasting until 8 AM. As usual, my biggest problem was that no matter how great my cards are, my play skill falls off when I'm plopping facedown on the table from exhaustion. I should take up cocaine like everybody else seems to. Went 2-2-3, squeaked out of the top 30.
Pulled several decent bombs without much synergy, so I built BUGC goodstuff. Amazingly, mana was the least of my worries since I pulled several multi-lands, mana rocks, and green land tutors. My two biggest problems were lack of removal and lack of card draw. Every game was a board stall won by whoever had the biggest evasive threat.
On the whole, I had fun, got some nice cards, and I've certainly been to worse prereleases. I just wish that my shop wasn't so good that it drives every other shop in the state out of business. You need a crowbar just to get in the place.
Needless to say my limited pool wasn't that great lol. My only big creature was Kozilek's Pathfinder, and the colorless or devoid support wasn't there. Ended going UR with a Stormchaser Mage and some decent surge cards. Went 1-3, won the first game by some unbelievable luck (using Mirrorpool on my opponent's Bane of Bala Ghed after I Turn Againsted it) besides that my games were ridiculously one sided. Got a Kozilek's Return in my pack though, so not all terrible. Fun day was fun overall.
and I pulled Kozilek, the Great Distortion I was really hoping to pull that I am interested in Giant decks