MTG Salvation

First pre-release for me, went 2-2, which my final opponent whom I lost against said that's pretty decent for a first timer. Played WG renown as I took white and got Kytheon's Irregulars. Pulled another Irregular (which ended up being foil too :)) and had it win me a few matches. Wish I had more Topan Freeblades to utilize, but sadly did not. Ran 2 of the Pharika's Disciple and a Woodland Bellower with a Hierarch. Other rares I pulled were a Starfield, Pia and Kira, Mage-Ring Responder, and a Molten Vortex.

First opponent used a WR renown and stomped me silly. Second guy which ironically was my friend played a UB deck. Came close to finishing me in the end but Irregulars won me the game. Third guy played UR. 2-0'd him and fourth guy played a pretty good GR stompy deck running the 6 renown colossus. Bought an intro pack after and got an Archangel of Tithes and Thopter Spy Network. So overall, may of not done that well in the pre-release but at least I got some decent pulls.

Went 5-1 at my prerelease for a 2nd place finish (out of about 40 players). Chose black, opened Liliana as a promo, ran a grindy GBw list:



Some notes:

-I loved this deck. Lots of game against everything... you have aggressive Renown creatures, ramp, easy 2-for-1s, the ability to blank your opponent's big plays with deathtouchers, beefy curve-toppers (Sentinel is absurd), and catch-all removal. Not having enough elves or zombies ended up being pretty irrelevant.

-Liliana, Defiant Necromancer's ultimate + Fleshbag Marauder is a disgusting combo. Pulling it off felt like cheating.

-Deadbridge Shaman is a top common. No questions asked. All of the deathtouchers were solid, though keeping up B is a real cost on the Imp. Foundry also impressed. Llanowar Empath missed a suspicious amount.

-This is a seriously aggressive format for sealed. Multiple RW aggro players were at the top tables, including the eventual 6-0 winner. Dragon Fodder.dec is a scary thing, and white has the mass pump to back it up. GU Tempo, GW Renown, and GB Elves were the most successful archetypes; I had the slowest deck at the top table. You want to be on the play.

-There wasn't much time for Read the Bones; I kept 2 in the sideboard. You really want to be impacting the board at all times. Macabre Waltz was unimpressive the few times I brought it in.

-Kytheon's Irregulars and Managorger Hydra are the two biggest bombs in the format. Multiple people at the top table had them; both were "answer or die". There's no getting around it with these two, and they come down early enough to put you on the back foot. Not even the Archangel could compete.

This deck was quite possibly one of the most powerful sealed pools I've ever opened, and I ended up 5-0ing the prerelease, dropping just a single game due to extreme mana flood. I've been ranting a lot on the forums about Topan Freeblade being one of the pillars of this limited format, and he did not disappoint at all. Any 1 drop -> Freeblade -> 3 drop opening on the play was incredibly hard for my opponents to beat, and I won plenty of games just on the back of Freeblade as a 3/3 just being so big at that stage of the game.

Notable sideboard cards included Skaab Goliath and Sword of the Animist. I started with both in the mainboard and Gold Forged Sentinel / Calculated Dismissal in the sideboard, but I quickly found out that 2 creatures is very hard to get into the graveyard with this deck since I only met that condition in two games of the 12 or so that I played. The card is especially mediocre against white and blue (who have aura based removal spells that do not kill your guys), and it might just be a sideboard card if you do not have any self mill. The sword was a more interesting cut: it turns out that lands are useless if you don't have any mana sinks, and my curve was low enough that I never found the lands to be useful. Sure, the dream is to eventually get rid of all of the lands in your deck, but I felt like I would much rather just have another way to interact with the opponent with the counterspell than to grind out value with the sword. Swift Reckoning was not the greatest in this deck either: your opponent isn't tapping their guys if you're being the aggressor, and this card got stranded a lot in my hand versus the control decks that were not trying to race me. The card also cannot deal with Skysnare Spider and Sentinel of the Eternal Watch, which are probably the two most important uncommon creatures that your deck should be prepared to have some sort of answer for.

2-2 Black kit. White Red with Archangel of tithes, Hixus and some burny spells.
4-0 White kit. White Red Consul's Lieutenant and all the burn/equip to play it. Meteorited for a win in rd 2. Won the event.
1-3 Green kit. Red Green Picked second green box instead of first. That other box? 2x Nissa, a Languish and all the Draw/ramp it would need. Pulled a Piledriver from prize pack!
?-? Blue kit. Tomorrow at noon.
?-? Red kit. Tomorrow at 6.

5-1 first sealed with a tryhard RW aggro.

Second sealed it was probably correct to play tryhard RW aggro again, but it was a weaker pool for such than the one I had earlier in the day and I kinda wanted to do something different so I played BW control instead. I went 3-3 which still netted me several packs just for having the stamina to stay for the whole event, haha.

There was a lot of RW aggro at the top tables. I think the prerelease format is indeed a aggressive 2 drop dominated beast.

went 4-0 with what was more or less an R/b falter deck. my curve was mostly 1-3 drops like goblin glory chaser Bonded construct Mage-ring bully Sword of the animist nantuko husk Boggart Brute and Angel's tomb and seismic elemental and Rogue's passage to break through. I can only think of 2 or 3 times I had to hold back on attacking. nantuko husk happened with rogue's passage for 10 damage one game. Sword of the animist was nuts, particularly in my earlier games. It was generally equipped to something with menace, which I can imagine was painful to face down. Menace proved to be the most awkward, disadvantageous mechanic for my opponents to deal with. particularly with any equipment at all. An extra +1/+1 goes a long way with that mechanic, and quality removal was in pretty short order from what I could see.

I went 3-1-1 with this list



I beat a UR deck 2-1 (out-aggroed him in 2 games, lost to mana-screw+Whirler Adept), a RW deck 2-0 (he was mana-screwed in one game and I lasted long enough to stabilize with my 5-drops in another), and a RW deck 2-1 (In game 1 he let me hit him with Consul's Lieutenant instead of chump-blocking and then I played Patron of the Valiant to make it a 4/3 with first strike and won soon after, in game 2 it got stuck in a stalled board-state with us each having 6-8 creatures in play and him playing an Ampryn Tactician for the win, in game 3 we traded off creatures until I cast Kothophed and he had no answer). I drew against a WB deck (I overcame a Languish in game 1 with a steady stream of threats after the sweeper, game 2 went long and I almost stabilized but lost to Gideon's Phalanx, and in game 3 I got him to 2 life but he cast Dark Petition to get Gideon's Phalanx with spell mastery which meant that I couldn't attack until I got 5 creatures and he had to constantly leave up 7 mana). I lost after an agreed concession and split to a WB deck that was absolutely absurd and had the good renown creatures, Tragic Arrogance, Kothophed, Gideon, and Kytheon's Irregulars. The split was definitely worth it since I opened Harbinger of the Tides, Knight of the White Orchid, and Kytheon in the prize packs.

3-1 with GB when I pulled 12 elves in total, two of them being Shaman of the Pack. Combined with tons of removal and lots of other deathtouch creatures, it went pretty well.

The most amusing thing I could mention is that I killed my opponent's Archangel of Tithes with Unholy Hunger while I had Liliana on the field.

Went 3-1 with a G/W....midrange? Stalled out the board with weenies until I got either my Rox or one of my two sspiders along with 1 of my 2 rogues passage to punch through lethal. Somehow I ended up 3rd though? I don't understand how. Went;
2-0
2-1
1-2
2-0
The last match I beat the guy 2-0 and he somehow placed 2nd ahead of me. Oh well. Still had fun. No pulls of note though.

is it just me, or do people who lost more matches than they won tend to not post in this thread? or, are people who read mtgsalvation just better than the average LGS player?

Played 3 pre-releases. Got 4-1 for all three. Two of them I had so-so rares and just went for whatever colours had removal + 3 cmc creatures (e.g. white) but for the last one I had this filthy deck.



The deck wasn't perfect but it had just enough early game and disruption that most of the time I was able to set up a position from which my opponent could not recover in time. Sphinx's Tutelage is an amazing clock vs a lot of decks too. My only loss with this deck came against a green white renown deck which had three of the tapping sentinels and a ridiculous amount of two drops with renown.

Quote from silph »

is it just me, or do people who lost more matches than they won tend to not post in this thread? or, are people who read mtgsalvation just better than the average LGS player?

Yeah it's a brag thread but it is useful for confirming how strong white is as was suspected by many.

The same story is repeating, drafted X Topan Freeblade and won heaps of games. I think Wizards has an unbalanced common here and it's going to be a draft first pick.

I went RG aggro and ended up 4-1. My stamped card was P&K Nalaar. Needed a couple more two mana creatures instead of 7 three drops.



Honored Hierarch -- I had him on turn 1 several games but in general I was underwhelmed since 2/2 vigilance is outclassed quickly and the ramp can't start until turn 3 at the earliest.

Goblin Glory Chaser I often had it with Honored Hierarch and I opted to play the Hierarch turn 1. Once it gets renowned it is fairly good.

Mage-Ring Bully Quite good since two drops are at a premium. Worked well with my 6 pump spells.

Undercity Troll There are a large number of tap effects meaning that you can't expect to be able to block with him very often even if you hold up his regeneration mana.

Acolyte of the Inferno Can't block at all meaning that he is good if you have the advantage and poor if not

Akroan Sergeant first strike makes a huge difference

Boggart Brute I never had enough of a swarm to maximize his Menace but he was good when I played against him

Ghirapur Gearcrafter Innocuous, but fliers proved quite effective in general and I wanted another artifact for Pia and Kiran's ability.

Yeva's Forcemage The bonus worked best on fliers or menace creatures to enable them to survive a double block.

Orchard Spirit I don't believe they were blocked once in 5 rounds but that mostly speaks to the decks I played against.

Firefiend Elemental I probably could have cut this but my sideliners were no better and I only had 15 other creatures. Occasionally the haste worked out but many times I had to decide whether to cast him to increase my forces or hold him until I could leverage his surprise factor. "Surprise" rarely won out.

Pia and Kiran Nalaar They were awesome but I ended up feeling my deck wasn't optimally designed to take advantage of them. Still, I doubt there was a better curve topper available

Fiery Conclusion Poor, especially when I had Pia and Kiran's ability active with a thopter.

Might of the Masses Decent, it wasn't the perfect fit for my deck. I had two and would've preferred at least one be Titanic Growth

Infectious Bloodlust Star card, without this I was quite susceptible to comebacks if the other deck produced a bomb. I especially missed this in the game where I was winning heavily until my opponent's first creature which was the 6/6 vigilance reach spider.

Mantle of Webs Reach never mattered but it helps get renown or protect a key creature

Wild Instincts Both with and against this card, I noticed that you could often clear a path and then attack with the creature to get the +2 extra damage.

Alchemist's Vial Not very strong, but on many occasions where I lacked a two drop it was better than cycling and I did sac it to Pia&Kiran once or twice.

War Horn I was happy with it even though I would say on average I only had two attackers at a time

Went 4-0. Picked white and my pulls were everywhere. Prerelease promo was Knight of the White Orchid and the only other significant rares were Hangarback Walker and Mage-Ring Responder. I was hoping to jump into W/R or W/U depending on what had the better cads but had nothing worth committing to. So I went mono white beatdown. My removal was a single Suppression Bonds, Celestial Flare and aSwift Reckoning. I had to turn my one Mighty Leap into removal on the block on multiple occasions but it felt good jumping a War Oracle into that blocker for 5 life.

I played aggressively and used my removal quickly to keep my small board presence superior and luckily my opponents were never able to drop bombs to over come my weak 1 and 2 power guys. It seemed every game I had different cards stepping up to be my MVP but I will say Anointer of Champions was an awesome 1 drop that pumped up my smaller guys for extra damage and was better with first strikers like the Knight of White Orchid. And War Horn which also pumped my guys on the attack, the extra 1 damage builds over time and made many unprofitable blocks or just trades. And with just a few thopters on the field it became deadly.

Surprised I did as well as I did as I didn't think the deck was amazing, but it just goes to show sealed is as much about solid play as opening a bomb pool. But I did get lucky as well. Had a fun time. The cards are all cool and I saw lots of decks being played.

The only good pull from the prize pool was a foil Nissa so I'm not complaining.

I went 3-1 with a RW deck, losing only to another RW deck. Highlight of the pre-release for me was casting Chandra's Ignition on my War Oracle in a game where my opponent had cast 2 Dragon Fodders: "I wipe your board, deal 3 damage to you, and gain 21 life".

Went 3-1 with BG sacrificey type list. Started with Black pack (had the demon promo but didn't play him). Good removal and Somberwald Alpha goes really well with the renown 6 giant.

I came 2nd with a 3-1 with a W/R Aggro deck, losing the first round to the guy who came first overall. Rares included a Relic Seeker, Knight of the White Orchid, 2 off colour painlands, and unplayable blue crap.

I had plenty of two drops, including 2 Topan Freeblade, the aformented rares, and 2 Cleric of the Forward Order. Followed by plenty of aggressive or evasive 3 drops, like Boggart Brute, Stalwart Aven and Acolyte of the Inferno, a couple of Titan's Strength and Lightning Javelins and Sentinel of the Eternal Watch allowed me to apply constant pressure all day.

This was my deck that I went 3-0-1 with. Game one I lost 1-2 to G/W mid-range but it turns out that he was at the wrong table, so I won . Game two was a mirror match where I was able to fly over with thopters. I won 2-1 (i think). My third round was the most exciting against a mono white aggro deck. The first game was an easy win since he didn't make his second land drop until turn 5 or 6. The second game was a grind fest where I was beaten down to one life and mounted an amazing comeback with Jace, vryn's prodigy and Sigiled Starfish where I kept casting and flashing back unholy hunger to gain life. The game went to turns and I won on the very last turn. My game 4 opponent was tired and wanted to draw, so we split the packs. I ended up leaving with a promo Jace, day's undoing (which I needed for commander) and a few other goodies.
Overall, I think I severely underestimated the new Jace, every time i flipped him and survived for about 2 turns, I won.

I played 2 prereleases.

Saturday: chose red, ended up playing RW. 2-2.

Embermaw Hellion was my promo. Notable pulls were Archangel of Tithes, foil Vryn Wingmare, Caves of Koilos and Battlefield Forge.
The deck was full of steal and falter effects, it seemed great at first but ended up being a bit weak. I had no real way to deal with fatties besides Act of Treason (which doesn't always work), that's why my two losses were against Sentinel of the Eternal Watch and Skysnare Spider. A card that performed well was Foundry of the Consuls, two fliers when you are running out of gas is great.


Sunday: chose green, ended up playing BG. 4-0, first place.

This time my promo was Outland Colossus. I also opened Languish and Demonic Pact.
Languish was an auto-inclusion, but I was skeptical about Demonic Pact. Then I saw Caustic Caterpillar and Conclave Naturalists in my pool and thought "hell, I need to do this"... Guys, let me tell you the pact is amazing, so much card advantage. You just wait to play it until you have a way to get rid of it and you are fine (although sometimes you might be desperate enough to play it and hope to draw an answer).
Other notable performers were Reave Soul (I had 3x), Elemental Bond (unsurprisingly) and Llanowar Empath (I really liked this guy).

Ok, it was too late it get into detail about my 3-1 G/W Midrange deck. Round 1 was a b/w midrange with Lilly. Not much to say here. He just couldn't keep up with a constant stream of creatures and I managed to Suppression Bonds any credible threat. Game 2 was against b/u control. I mana flooded/crunched (got stuck on a LOT of forests, no plains. Game two was close but overwhelmed him with creatures & Rogue's Passage. Game three was more one sided. He could find answers for my early creatures but no threats of his own as well as a bit of mana flood. Game 3 was against the winner of the tourney. He was running R/U aggro Thopters. Game one he just out tempo'ed me. Game two I stuck a Rhox Maulers with a Rogue's Passage and he was out of removal. Game three was a repeat of game 1 but I had a slow start on the land. Game 4 was a R/G aggro. Game one I just traded 1 for 1 on creatures till he ran out and then stuck a Skysnare Spider and ran away with it. Game 2 we both stalled each other with massive boards. I was just stalling for my Rogue's Passage. By the time it came I had 2 Skysnare Spider's and a renowned Rhox Maulers with a host of 2-4 drops acting as a wall. Just ran the fatties through with Passage until he was dead. Overall a good experience even if I didn't pull any money cards (even in my 4 prize packs).

Here's what I ran;

• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
  
• 1 Elvish Visionary
  
• 2 Topan Freeblade
  
• 1 Knight of the White Orchid
  
• 1 Cleric of th Forward Order
  
• 1 Blessed Spirits
  
• 1 Stalwart Aven
  
• 1 Knight of the Pilgrim's Road
  
• 1 Yeva's Forcemage
  
• 1 War Oracle
  
• 1 Ampryn Tactician
  
• 1 Charging Griffin
  
• 1 Rhox Maulers
  
• 2 Skysnare Spiders
  
• 2 Titanic Growth
  
• 1 Swift Reckoning
  
• 2 Angel's Tomb
  
• 2 Suppression Bonds
  
• 1 Evolving Wilds
  
• 2 Rogue's Passage

3-0-1 picking black and ended up going B/W-kill-everything. Seriosuly, I got Languish as my promo, opened a second one, and also got a bunch more black and white premium removal. Played a pretty low curve with Shambling Ghouls and Topan Freeblades on two and Deadbridge Shamans and a Graveblade Marauder on three notably, and just beat down while spot killing everything that could stop me, or baiting a Languish blowout. Didn't drop a game until the just-for-fun match with my 4th round op whom I drew with. All around, a very good and fun prerelease :).

Picked red, went 3-1 with the following red/white build:


No Topan Freeblades, unfortunately, but the Thopter-makers did some good work. Usually ended up flooding the board with little guys, then either picking away with Thopter tokens or closing out with Tactician or Seismic Elemental. Subterranean Scout sometimes snuck in some damage, but was usually just a glorified Piker. Going Dragon Fodder > Gearcrafter > Ampyrn Tactician is nice when it comes together. I had a Tragic Arrogance that ended up in my sideboard most of the time, as my creatures tended to be rather uninspiring individually. Highlight of the day was probably beating the guy who had pulled two Lilianas... and a foil Erebos's Titan. Though I guess in a sense he had already won...

Quote from Aether7 »

Quote from silph »

is it just me, or do people who lost more matches than they won tend to not post in this thread? or, are people who read mtgsalvation just better than the average LGS player?

Yeah it's a brag thread but it is useful for confirming how strong white is as was suspected by many.

The same story is repeating, drafted X Topan Freeblade and won heaps of games. I think Wizards has an unbalanced common here and it's going to be a draft first pick.

I'd say that the people who spend the time reading/writings posts on MTGS would be a bit more invested than the average player at a prerelease, so yeah, a better track record is expected.

Anyway, here's my brag post about how I went 4-1 with the help of Topan Freeblades!



Topan Freeblade -> Knight of the Pilgrim's Road -> War Oracle is no joke. I don't think I've ever had such a consistent sealed deck. It was a bit shaky with so many double mana spells in both colours, but I only had two losses due to missing a colour, so lucky there. Red was a tempting splash with some great removal, but I'm glad I decided against it.

@silph: Both. I fessed up to a 3-3 though!

I got blue because I like UW flyers.

I got Promo jace then opened another jace then the Djinn of blades or whatever.

turns out I had four total pieces of removal, claustrophobia, cruel revival, sac attacking creature and the green fight card.

I had a lots of blue flyers but only the two white ones. First two games I tried to play esper flyiers with my cave of kolois to help with fixing for cruel revival and the zombie witness. Got crushed by RW aggro in the first two rounds. Tried instead to build green blue, since my green was much better than I first though with a woodland bellower, the renown rhinos, the bonus to blocking wolf and a bunch of bears and dorks. Whille I didn't have a lot of green most of it was playable. I got Milled out by The whenever you draw a card mill card game one... then I got my opponent to 1 before they slammed Alhammet and two renown rhinos and killed me :frown:. last round was the last place bye.

I failed to win a single game

Blue sucks.

To be fair I opend Two Jace and a Goblin piledriver to get my money back at least.