I went to the local midnight prerelease last night. There were nearly 100 people there and the people on both sides of me opened expeditions. My promo was Brood Butcher and the one mythic I opened was Greenwarden of Murasa which, between them, helped to pull me into GB. I also had some blue cards I wanted to run, notably Ruination Guide and Exert Influence, I decided on three colours. But then, I also had a Smoldering Marsh and a single copy of Turn Against, which seemed like a good card. I got to thinking that running more colours was good for Exert Influence and my one other converge card. So, what the hell, throw in the Marsh, the Turn Against and a single Mountain and now we have a four colour deck.
In the end, my deck was a primarily G/B Scion swarm/sacrifice shell with Brood Butcher, Greenwarden, Eldrazi Devastator, and Ruin Processor at the top end.
Match 1 I went 2-0 against a R/W aggro deck that just ran out of gas before my big guys started hitting the board both games.
Match 2 I went 1-2 against the GBu quasi-mirror (he had a landfall subtheme and much less focus on Scions than I did) that had better bombs than me. In game one, he played Sire of Stagnation THREE times (I bounced it once, and then killed it once, but he got it back from his graveyard. He blew me out of winning game three when I failed to properly play around Swell of Growth triggering landfall mid-combat.
Match 3 I went 2-1 against a UWb flyers/ingest deck that won game one by just curving out flyers. I won games two and three after siding in two copies of plummet and then drawing them when I needed them. One thing of interest is that in game three, I drew like seven extra cards off of Vampiric Rites as well as gaining 5 life off of Ruin Processor over the course of the game. The result is that all his ingesting actually came very close to milling me out. I won the game with 2 cards left in my library.
Match 4 I went 2-1 against UR Control with a ton of burn spells. All three games went very long and I won primarily by attacking with Scions, which have the advantage of being very inefficient targets for burn.
All-Stars of the Night
Brood Butcher: Unsurprisingly took over every game where I cast him. With all the tokens I had, he was a essentially a slow 1.5-sided board wipe if not answered. Vampiric Rites: This drew me so many cards, either saccing things like Blisterpod just for value, or saccing things that were about to die anyway. On two separate occasions, I had someone try to bounce their own creature that I had stolen with Exert Influence. Vampiric Rites made sure it went to the grave instead of to their hand or the top of their library, netting me a card and a life in the process. Blisterpod and Carrier Thrall: Speaking of Brood Butcher and Vampiric Rites, these guys are just absolute value trains if you have a sacrifice theme. I was happy to see my one drops even late game, which is nice. Grave Birthing: Between two copies of this and one Ruination Guide, I was always able to turn on my processors when I needed to. It isn't flashy, but I always felt good casting it. Ruination Guide: Oh man, this guy was so strong since I often had 3 to 5 scions on the board at a time. I look forward to drafting a deck with two or three of this guy.
Final thoughts: The fixing is good. Even though I was four colours, between two Lifespring Druids, two Fertile Thickets, and a Blighted Woodland, I only had one game where I had cards I really wanted to cast stuck in my hand because of colour screw.
Oh, and postscript brag: I opened a Verdant Catacombs in my prize packs!
Although my red & black pool was telling me that the self sacrifice plan had a lot of support, I didn't feel like I opened enough low cost creatures to make it viable and I didn't play Zada because I had no pump spells I liked. However I did have a fare bit of digging and ramping in blue and green as well as Blighted Woodland, Spawning Bed, two evolving wilds and a Fertile Thicket. So I went Bant goodstuff with Ulamog as the win con, and a bunch of converge creatures, awaken spells and Planar Outburst as an alternate win condition.
I tied one game, and won another before I decided I was too tired to continue and went home to get some sleep.
I was playing a 4 color ramp deck with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger at the top end. Lots of early 1/4's and */5 to go with ramp and some red removal.
Match one got beat by a tempo UB devoid build. He had a lot of 1-3 drops and kept bouncing or killing my 1/4 blockers so I could never stabilize to get to the late game. My draws were not great but I think his deck was just better. Was worried 7-10 drops might not be playable, but it's a prerelase so stuck with the deck.
Match 2, Radiant Flames got me a 3-1 in both games against RG landfall. Was able to ramp out to Ulamog and that was fun.
Match 3, Against UG ingest. We were going back and forth but again Radiant Flames did some work taking out his Scions and such. Top deck Ulamog after laying down my land the turn before to get me to 10 mana and sealed the game. Game 2 he got out a dampening pulse which turned all my 1/4 to complete crap cards. He then slowly ground me down in the air with his 1/2's which took forever so we ended up going to time in game 3 so we ended up drawing which is what I asked for before the match since it was late anyway.
All in all pretty fun and got 2 packs. Wish my deck had a little more synergy than it did but can't complain since I got a ton of fixing and was able to play most of my good cards which is what prerelease is all about.
I went 4-1 with UGw Scions (losing round 4 to the eventual winner) for 3rd of 24. Get 5-10 Scions, cast Tajuru Beastmaster, win happened a lot. Veteran Warleader came down as a 5/5 or 6/6 and usually stayed alive the entire game to end as a 12/12-19/19. He was an abyss until I could draw into one of my few allies for trample. Plated Crusher was fairly underwhelming. 6 toughness was just low enough to get easily blocked and so it didn't seem to be really worth the GGG cost. If I had any tricks or more removal than just Scour from Existence, I could see it being good, but in my deck it was just too small for it's cost.
My round 4 loss came off the back of a g2 where I kept 3 Forests and died turn 7 after drawing 0 lands and casting 0 spells.
Hi guys, I'm a very very casual player, and I played from time to time around Scars, Innistrad and RTR, but my local group of friends disbanded as we started graduating around Theros release. Yesterday, with a sudden spark of 'I wanna play some MtG' I hit the local comic store for a midnight prerelease. I didn't know much about new cards. I didn't play back in original Zendikar either, so I wanted to experience it. And boy, I had so much fun! My hands didn't shuffle any cards for over one year and a half and I forgot how fun it is!
Our event was small - 24 players. One expedition was opened - it was a Marsh Flats. They are very shinny and beautiful.
My pool was all over the place, my promo was Defiant Bloodlord and other black rare I opened was Smothering Abomination without much support of other black creatures/lifegain/sacrifice effects. Other rares were: Canopy Vista, Sunken Hollow, Sanctum of Ugin, Dragonmaster Outcast and Akoum Hellkite. I decided to go with red as a main color, second one was between white and blue, but I ultimately decided on WR aggro/fliers with some allies and landfall theme.
My deck was not super good, but it was relatively fast. And this format seems quite slow in sealed. I went 2-1.
I lost first game 0-2 to a UGrb converge deck with foil Kiora, Master of the Depths and multiple Ingest/ Processors cards. His two Serpentine Spikes and two Titan's Presence were quite brutal against me. He had good fixing too. Second game he dropped Kiora, cleared my board, stalled me with two Oracle of Dust, and then ultimated Kiora. Not having enough Octopus tokens, he put 3 cards with Pandas. The level of raging was real, table-flip kinda moment - it was so fun!
Second game I went 2-1, played against GBu sacrifice/scions/ramp deck. His deck was really slow in comparison to mine, and he couldn't cope with menace/landfall/fliers as he lacked some removal. One game I solely lost due to Woodland Wanderer casted on T4 with GBU that I couldn't remove.
Third game I went 2-0, played against WBug awaken fliers. This deck had a lot of ramp (he snatched Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger), some cheap fliers and some controlish spells with awaken. Overall it wasn't very fast, so I run him over first with ground allies with menace, then second game I dropped T6 Dragonmaster Outcast, followed by T7 Outnumber to his 4/4 awaken Forest and finishing with Akoum Hellkite.
I won two BFZ packs, opened Shambling Vent and Endless One, went out of the comic store around 4:30am and hit home happy.
It was great! It makes me wanna go back and play magic again.
Had a 26 player event at my store. We had a wide variety of people from dedicated players to semi-casual. I didn't expect to go 4-0-1.
My promo was such a bad card I don't even want to bother remembering it. No value was opened, and none of my rares were playable but my deck was still insane. R/B aggro was the nuts. Touch of the Void won games. Forerunner of Slaughter was consistently a good draw Dominator Drone always hit Turn Against won me games AND is one of the most powerful cards hands down in a set full of bombs.
but..
one card....
stood among the rest during the sealed event. Nettle Drone
My lord. My savior. My MVP by far.
I nearly won a game with only red sources, 3 lands, and one of these cards. He invalidates all tap spells. He hits for potentially 4+ and almost always for me had even more value than that. This card was PRIME in my aggro strat dealing up to 7 in a single turn between Touch of the Void, Sludge Crawler (Also extremely good), and Complete Disregard. Having no playable rares was apparently not an issue, which was especially surprising since I went in blind. Split 22ish packs and got a bunch of lands in colors I needed (one foiled) and a handful of very playable rares.
I went 4-0 last night with my 4-color deck. It was base B/G with splashes of W for Drana's Emissary and U for Drowner of Hope and Eldrazi Sky Spawner made possible with a landbase that included Blighted Woodland, Prairie Stream, Fertile Thicket and 2 Evolving Wilds. I had three different life-drain effects in Kalastria Healer, Zulaport Cutthroat and Retreat to Hagra. Retreat didn't do much for me in the one game I cast it, but it is hard to do much when your opponent curves out as well as mine did that game. The other two were all-stars. I was pleasantly surprised at the raw power of Drowner of Hope as it ended games more quickly than expected, usually clearing the way for a giant Rot Shambler to get through. Breaker of Armies was my top end, and won both games I cast him in, though I had to convince one slow opponent to concede after going to time when I had lethal represented on board. From Beyond was just as solid as expected.
EDIT: There were over 70 people at the event and my LGS doesn't go more than 4 rounds for anything other than major events.
Went 6-0 to win my prerelease of over 80 people! This is the first tournament outside of FNM I've won to date, so I'm pretty thrilled with how it went, even though I opened no mythics in my sealed or any of my prize packs. I went Abzan with an unfortunate number of double casting cost creatures, but my fixing and luck was sufficient that I wasn't punished for it.
MVP: Grovetender Druids- These guys were the single biggest diving force behind all of my match wins. Insane with March from the Tomb, insane with Unified Front, and threatening in its own right.
Other standouts: March from the Tomb- Way better than I had hoped for. It's not hard at all to get at least 5 mana of value from this, and sometimes your allies combo together in such a way that you just overwhelm your opponent. Getting both Druids back and making 4 plant tokens was one of my favorite plays of the night.
Angel of Renewal- Fliers are at a premium in this format, and this one has little competition for air superiority. Catching you up on life and triggering your allies makes this rather well-positioned.
Unified Front- Whenever you have a ally in play with an ability that stacks (Druids, Beastmaster) and you have 3+ colors, this just lets you go off. I shudder to think what would happen if I had a Tajiru Warcaller.
Tajiru Beastmaster- Filled its role admirably. Pump your tokens, provide a fat attacker/blocker, threaten to go off with a few more allies. It's not Warcaller, but it doesn't have to be.
Other observations: Sheer Drop can be great, but don't forget that the Assassinate text can still leave you high and dry. I had to kill a 1/1 on a couple occasions just to get it out of my hand.
Molten Nursery can be a pain for this type of deck. Getting 16+ colorless spells looks very attainable in this format, so sometimes your tokens are just going to be blanked. Murk Strider and Ulamog's Reclaimer looked like 2 of the best payoffs for processor shenanigans.
In the finals, I faced the Felidar Sovereign mirror. It took exactly as long to finish this match as you think it did; I nearly lost to Sovereign's ability in one game before a timely Ruinous Path bailed me out.
Went 3-2 at my prerelease of 30 something people. My pool was pretty damn amazing but lost 1 match to a nutty aggro R/W ally deck with the perfect curve, and another to flood & screw.
Still had a lot of fun, and there were a tonne of powerful decks going around. Mine was
As you can see, the deck was crawling with scions. Would have preferred a few of the more oppressive uncommon eldrazi like Breaker of Armies (which was a pretty big mvp at our store). Overall the deck was very strong, and I was very happy with it even with the mediocre finish. Really looking forward to drafting this set.
So I wanted to build around Gruesome Slaughter and I did sorta have the cards for it, though it was strong it didnt blow me away (though my colorless boys where probobly abit weak=/). Nettle Drone Was insane. Ugin's Insight was insane (especially with Ulamog's Reclaimer). Endless One was awsome because of its flexability. Radiant flames was more than good enough even though I only casted it with X=2.
Went to my LGS's morning prerelease with 40 something people. My pool contained a Brood Butcher, Smoldering Marsh, Wasteland Strangler, Veteran Warleader, Angelic Captain, Akoum Hellkite, Barrage Tyrant(foil), and a Promo Felidar Sovereign, along with the following common/uncommon pool (parden the weird format, I had it in an excel spreadsheet beforehand):
My deck ended up being a red/white midrange deck that packed a LOT of removal (deck composition is shown in the images below). Being that this deck didn't run any mythics, I expected it to go 2-2 or maybe 3-1 if I got good matchups. What I did NOT expect was to 4-0 the prerelease and win every match 2-0.
1st matchup: Was playing a red/black deck that had some ingest effects and Drana. Nearly lost the first game due to opponent playing a turn 3 drana, but I managed to find a smite the Monstrous before things got too out of hand. He got me to around 5 or 6 life before I was able to rebound with Akoum Hellkite and Felidar Soverign. Game 2 was much more straightforward with removal clearing the way for my creatures. After the match, I suggested that he switch to red/white since he had good white creatures and Planar Outburst
2nd matchup: Played against an eldrazi ramp that ran Brutal Expulsion and the Lumbering Falls manland. Managed to take out his Eldrazi creatures using Smite the Monstrous in game 1. Akoum Hellkite was instrumental in winning that game. Game 2 was similar, although the hexproof Lumbering Falls gave me quite a bit of trouble. I did side out Makindi Sliderunner and 1 Gideon's Reproach with the cards under the "notable sideboard cards" image.
3rd matchup: Played against a UW awaken deck that had a promo Planar outburst *and* Gideon. Had to deal with a turn 4 Gideon in game 1. I was *barely* able to take it out with a combination of a Touch of the Void and Nettle Drone. It was another close and interactive game that got me to 5 life, but Felidar Sovereign helped me stabilize and deal with the scion tokens that his blue creatures gave me. Game 2 was a bit slower, but less pressurizing since he only played creatures this time. Angelic Captain was an all-star in both games, and strangely enough, Pilgrim's eye.
4th matchup. Played against a blue green deck that made a LOT of use of the taplands AND the lumbering falls land. Game 1 saw me on the backfoot as he was able to apply huge pressure using Looming Spires and Sandstone Bridge. Felidar Soverign and Akoum Hellkite again played a big role in turning the tide. Game 2 saw me facing up against the same scenarios and an Endless One casted for 10 mana, which met a quick end with Smite the Monstrous. He was able to deal with Felidar Sovereign this time, so I had to hold off the ground until Akoum Hellkite could start dealing damage.
Overall, it was MUCH more interactive prerelease than the one in Magic Origins, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I also like the fact that the 4-0 prerelease broke the 2-2 continuous losing prerelease streak that I experienced ever since Khans of Tarkir.
The other 5-0 and I played "for fun" after to see who would win and he stomped me 0-3. His deck had ridiculous bombs and he's a strong player - glad I didn't have to play him for real.
My pool was garbage. I opened 0 mythics, 3 land rares, a glorified Cancel, few good early drops, and basically no Scion producers or big Eldrazi. I just sleeved up a pile of mediocre commons and tempo spells, 0 bombs, 0 mass removal, and it seemed to get the job done. I think I benefitted from ekeing out edges with 2-for-1s, synergy, and effective sideboarding. Also, the competition at prereleases tends to be weak. More casual players and players who haven't figured out the format yet.
I saw a lot of people do well with UB control. There are good answers and a lot of potential 2-for-1s in the format. The aggro archetypes suffer from lack of the synergy you would get in draft, while with control you can just grind people out and save answers for their few bombs.
4-0'd and came in first out of 17ish people. My deck was U/W with double Retreat to Emeria, splashing red for converge on 2 copies of Unified Front (which was pretty mediocre a lot, but amazing when combined with the Retreat) and also for a Radiant Flames. I also had 3 Sheer Drop, along with Royan Nar and Roil Spout. The Eldrazi were much less relevant than I expected - I only saw one colorless Eldrazi cast.
The Saturday afternoon pre-release has traditionally been lightly attended but this time the store I prefer moved the start time back to 2pm to let the midnight marathoners get some sleep and be ready to go. As a result we pulled in 50 players. I cobbled together a G/U deck with featuring a bunch of devoid and a solid air game including a Skyrider Elf and three Cloud Mantas. Those did a lot of the heavy lifting early, but the hands down MVC for me was Drowner of Hope. Teamed up with From Beyond or any of several other sources of scions it won me a ton of games, even facing down stronger foes like Omnath and many of the larger Eldrazi. After losing game 3 of round 1 in an epic topdeck war, I ran the table from there to take 5-1 and 6th place (lousy tiebreak system...).
went 2-1 using a rather off ramp with a bit of control UG eldrazi deck. match 1 was a full on drazi ramp deck, won fairly easy. match two was against a RW token deck with tons of flyers and removal, lost that one since i could never land a threat that lasted a turn. match three was against a rally/landfall deck with and eldrazi splash for finishers, which i also won
overall, the card im the most glad i included was Part The Waterveil. literally won me the game everytime i landed it. i was pretty dissapointed in the overall strength of the big eldrazi, and feel like ulamog is the only one with any potential. it seemed like every one i got out just ended up trading to clear a bit of the board. there wasnt really enough "oomph" to them, and i felt on the brink of losing every game and that they were just a cry of desperation to stall the game a another turn or two. Usually ended up winning from drones swinging in damage over time or from landing a Part the waterveil.
in every game i played, the scions felt pretty useless as anything but chump blockers. because of the high mana cost of all of the scion creating spells, your opponent usually had several threats on the board that would end up killing you if you didn't chump with the scions.
I didn't do the greatest when it came to winning the rounds, but the deck I constructed worked very well most of the time. Of 4 rounds, I only won 1 of them. The flow of the deck was good, but there were matches in the rounds where my opponents either ingested the deck to death, disrupting land grab for me cause my hand was filling up with the creatures that would win the game or I was just short one card to start a chain of destrection.
Omnath, Winnower, Breaker, and Conduit had to be my allstars in the matches because they changed things in my favor and always shook the opponent when they saw me play them. In one of the matches, I was able to play Omnath and then Nissa's Renewal the next turn and my opponent simply said "Welp, I'm screwed". I had plenty of ways to hit the mana on the field when I needed it but I should have placed some creature removal. I do want to see what I can do with Omnath and Nissa Worldwaker, maybe with Kiora, Master of the Depths in the future.
I basically overpowered everyone, except for round 4, where I played a Esper deck that had tons of removal and just keep breaking down my bombs, one after another. I had a really good time playing though, and I think this is the best I have ever done in a pre-release. Opened an Ulamog in the bonus packs which is nice.
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Went 4-0 with a mediocre pool. I felt like my cards were all over the place and ended on a UB Ingest Control build. Stand out cards were:
2x Swarm Surge which gave me an alternate way to win by pumping all of my small ingest creatures. It is especially potent after making some Eldrazi Scion tokens.
3x Benthic Infiltrator whose 4 toughness was oftentimes a brick wall that could enable my processors once the board was more stable.
1x Ulamog's Nullifier. When it works, it's awesome. You counter their spell and end their turn with a new 2/3 flier.
Ended up 5-0 and winning my pod. Had a pretty good pool, prelease promo was Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, other good rare pulls were Oblivion Sower, and Emeria Shepard, which pushed me into white, and 3x Eldrazi Skyspawner, and 3x Benthic Infiltrator, among other playable cards (Clutch of currents, roil spout) pushed me into blue white. MVP: skyspawner and infiltrator were both good, especially at getting through with evasion. The shepard got stuck in my had once (didn't find 2 plains) but did win me two games were other cards wouldn't, once by bringing back a gideon twice, and once by finding me a tightening coils out of the yard, which locked down a felidar sovereign. Another card that impressed me was skyline cascade, which often was just a good tempo card, buying me time to kill in the air.
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"If you knew anything about the lore you'd see that they were clearly hinting that the madness on Innistrad was caused by Uncle Istvan wearing Urza's Power Armor ... tainted with Phrexyian Oil"
Graham from Loading Ready Run
I played a 42 card, 4-color monstrosity to a 3-0-split finish. Honestly when I put the deck together I thought it was trash, but in the games I always seemed to have exactly what I needed to win, so maybe it was secretly insane. This was the list:
The card that most impressed me was Roil Spout. I was already pretty high on the card going in, but my goodness is it the real deal or what. It's backbreaking on 3 or 6 and was always a good draw.
Honorable mention goes to Spell Shrivel. Despite the abundance of mana people had, there was only a single time a spell I wanted to counter could be paid for. I was really happy to have one in my deck, and it was great at securing wins after untapping with Gideon or Bane of Bala Ged. I'm going to be actively looking to get 1 or 2 in drafts.
34 Players meant 6 Rounds, raced to 4-0, then lost out to a sweet blue/red tempo deck, went under most other opponents (usually quickly, and 2-0)
Went 5-1 for 2nd place. Drana was unsurprisingly amazing in all my games she appeared. (As was rolling Thunder) Makindi Sliderunners were excellent as were both Retreat to Valakut and the forerunner of slaughter.
Turn against was surprisingly never relevant all tournament
unexpected MVP goes to Outnumber. Surprisingly relevant for keeping the board clear early and enabling the beatdown.
I think people weren't expecting this strategy as much and for everyone who could, or felt they had to, go full bore aggression I feel like they will have been rewarded in Spades.
Opened a Bloodstained Mire, also won a playmat from the game store from a promotion they were doing. What more could I have possibly wanted?
Went 2-2-1 with a very uneven Black-Red aggro with a grinding late game. Did not get any bomb rares (two Prism Arrays!), so the deck instead revolved around just trying to go all out early with small creatures. Turn one Sludge Crawler, turn two Kozilek's Sentinel, turn three Pilgrim's Eye (Did not have a good three drop), turn four Swarm Surge. Swinging for ten power first strike on turn four, when a lot of the decks in this format are very slow to get off the ground.
The draw ran out of time because I was playing against a Blue-Black control that was able to keep almost everything I could cast off the board, but my grinding assault finished him with four cards left in my library. Didn't have enough time for the next game.
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----- "I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
I had the worst pre-release result I've ever had. I went 5CG because my pool had fixing and not much else, so I went with removal, flyers and a couple of eldrazi.
I went 0-2 before I got paired against beginner players and finished 2-2.
In the end, my deck was a primarily G/B Scion swarm/sacrifice shell with Brood Butcher, Greenwarden, Eldrazi Devastator, and Ruin Processor at the top end.
Match 1 I went 2-0 against a R/W aggro deck that just ran out of gas before my big guys started hitting the board both games.
Match 2 I went 1-2 against the GBu quasi-mirror (he had a landfall subtheme and much less focus on Scions than I did) that had better bombs than me. In game one, he played Sire of Stagnation THREE times (I bounced it once, and then killed it once, but he got it back from his graveyard. He blew me out of winning game three when I failed to properly play around Swell of Growth triggering landfall mid-combat.
Match 3 I went 2-1 against a UWb flyers/ingest deck that won game one by just curving out flyers. I won games two and three after siding in two copies of plummet and then drawing them when I needed them. One thing of interest is that in game three, I drew like seven extra cards off of Vampiric Rites as well as gaining 5 life off of Ruin Processor over the course of the game. The result is that all his ingesting actually came very close to milling me out. I won the game with 2 cards left in my library.
Match 4 I went 2-1 against UR Control with a ton of burn spells. All three games went very long and I won primarily by attacking with Scions, which have the advantage of being very inefficient targets for burn.
All-Stars of the Night
Brood Butcher: Unsurprisingly took over every game where I cast him. With all the tokens I had, he was a essentially a slow 1.5-sided board wipe if not answered.
Vampiric Rites: This drew me so many cards, either saccing things like Blisterpod just for value, or saccing things that were about to die anyway. On two separate occasions, I had someone try to bounce their own creature that I had stolen with Exert Influence. Vampiric Rites made sure it went to the grave instead of to their hand or the top of their library, netting me a card and a life in the process.
Blisterpod and Carrier Thrall: Speaking of Brood Butcher and Vampiric Rites, these guys are just absolute value trains if you have a sacrifice theme. I was happy to see my one drops even late game, which is nice.
Grave Birthing: Between two copies of this and one Ruination Guide, I was always able to turn on my processors when I needed to. It isn't flashy, but I always felt good casting it.
Ruination Guide: Oh man, this guy was so strong since I often had 3 to 5 scions on the board at a time. I look forward to drafting a deck with two or three of this guy.
Final thoughts: The fixing is good. Even though I was four colours, between two Lifespring Druids, two Fertile Thickets, and a Blighted Woodland, I only had one game where I had cards I really wanted to cast stuck in my hand because of colour screw.
Oh, and postscript brag: I opened a Verdant Catacombs in my prize packs!
Although my red & black pool was telling me that the self sacrifice plan had a lot of support, I didn't feel like I opened enough low cost creatures to make it viable and I didn't play Zada because I had no pump spells I liked. However I did have a fare bit of digging and ramping in blue and green as well as Blighted Woodland, Spawning Bed, two evolving wilds and a Fertile Thicket. So I went Bant goodstuff with Ulamog as the win con, and a bunch of converge creatures, awaken spells and Planar Outburst as an alternate win condition.
I tied one game, and won another before I decided I was too tired to continue and went home to get some sleep.
I was playing a 4 color ramp deck with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger at the top end. Lots of early 1/4's and */5 to go with ramp and some red removal.
Match one got beat by a tempo UB devoid build. He had a lot of 1-3 drops and kept bouncing or killing my 1/4 blockers so I could never stabilize to get to the late game. My draws were not great but I think his deck was just better. Was worried 7-10 drops might not be playable, but it's a prerelase so stuck with the deck.
Match 2, Radiant Flames got me a 3-1 in both games against RG landfall. Was able to ramp out to Ulamog and that was fun.
Match 3, Against UG ingest. We were going back and forth but again Radiant Flames did some work taking out his Scions and such. Top deck Ulamog after laying down my land the turn before to get me to 10 mana and sealed the game. Game 2 he got out a dampening pulse which turned all my 1/4 to complete crap cards. He then slowly ground me down in the air with his 1/2's which took forever so we ended up going to time in game 3 so we ended up drawing which is what I asked for before the match since it was late anyway.
All in all pretty fun and got 2 packs. Wish my deck had a little more synergy than it did but can't complain since I got a ton of fixing and was able to play most of my good cards which is what prerelease is all about.
Then ran into the aggro crowd and got obliterated
Went 3-3 and got no money cards
Still had a decent time
My round 4 loss came off the back of a g2 where I kept 3 Forests and died turn 7 after drawing 0 lands and casting 0 spells.
Our event was small - 24 players. One expedition was opened - it was a Marsh Flats. They are very shinny and beautiful.
My pool was all over the place, my promo was Defiant Bloodlord and other black rare I opened was Smothering Abomination without much support of other black creatures/lifegain/sacrifice effects. Other rares were: Canopy Vista, Sunken Hollow, Sanctum of Ugin, Dragonmaster Outcast and Akoum Hellkite. I decided to go with red as a main color, second one was between white and blue, but I ultimately decided on WR aggro/fliers with some allies and landfall theme.
My deck was:
2 Makindi Sliderunner
1 Reckless Cohort
2 Shadow Glider
1 Valakut Predator
1 Firemantle Mage
2 Ondu Greathorn
1 Ondu Champion
1 Courier Griffin
1 Belligerent Whiptail
1 Shatterskull Recruit
1 Angel of Renewal
1 Deathless Behemoth
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Akoum Hellkite
1 Outnumber
1 Tandem Tactics
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 Looming Spires
1 Evolving Wilds
8 Mountain
7 Plains
My deck was not super good, but it was relatively fast. And this format seems quite slow in sealed. I went 2-1.
I lost first game 0-2 to a UGrb converge deck with foil Kiora, Master of the Depths and multiple Ingest/ Processors cards. His two Serpentine Spikes and two Titan's Presence were quite brutal against me. He had good fixing too. Second game he dropped Kiora, cleared my board, stalled me with two Oracle of Dust, and then ultimated Kiora. Not having enough Octopus tokens, he put 3 cards with Pandas. The level of raging was real, table-flip kinda moment - it was so fun!
Second game I went 2-1, played against GBu sacrifice/scions/ramp deck. His deck was really slow in comparison to mine, and he couldn't cope with menace/landfall/fliers as he lacked some removal. One game I solely lost due to Woodland Wanderer casted on T4 with GBU that I couldn't remove.
Third game I went 2-0, played against WBug awaken fliers. This deck had a lot of ramp (he snatched Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger), some cheap fliers and some controlish spells with awaken. Overall it wasn't very fast, so I run him over first with ground allies with menace, then second game I dropped T6 Dragonmaster Outcast, followed by T7 Outnumber to his 4/4 awaken Forest and finishing with Akoum Hellkite.
I won two BFZ packs, opened Shambling Vent and Endless One, went out of the comic store around 4:30am and hit home happy.
It was great! It makes me wanna go back and play magic again.
My promo was such a bad card I don't even want to bother remembering it. No value was opened, and none of my rares were playable but my deck was still insane. R/B aggro was the nuts.
Touch of the Void won games.
Forerunner of Slaughter was consistently a good draw
Dominator Drone always hit
Turn Against won me games AND is one of the most powerful cards hands down in a set full of bombs.
but..
one card....
stood among the rest during the sealed event.
Nettle Drone
My lord. My savior. My MVP by far.
I nearly won a game with only red sources, 3 lands, and one of these cards. He invalidates all tap spells. He hits for potentially 4+ and almost always for me had even more value than that. This card was PRIME in my aggro strat dealing up to 7 in a single turn between Touch of the Void, Sludge Crawler (Also extremely good), and Complete Disregard. Having no playable rares was apparently not an issue, which was especially surprising since I went in blind. Split 22ish packs and got a bunch of lands in colors I needed (one foiled) and a handful of very playable rares.
An enigma as vexing as life itself.
EDIT: There were over 70 people at the event and my LGS doesn't go more than 4 rounds for anything other than major events.
1x Oran-Rief Invoker
1x Felidar Cub
1x Rot Shambler
1x Makindi Patrol
2x Lifespring Druid
2x Grovetender Druids
1x Smothering Abomination
1x Brood Butcher
1x Angel of Renewal
1x Tajiru Beastmaster
1x Oran-Rief Hydra
1x Feildar Sovereign
1x Call the Scions
2x Sheer Drop
1x Ruinous Path
1x Unified Front
1x March from the Tomb
7x Forest
6x Plains
3x Swamp
1x Mortuary Mire
1x Evolving Wilds
MVP: Grovetender Druids- These guys were the single biggest diving force behind all of my match wins. Insane with March from the Tomb, insane with Unified Front, and threatening in its own right.
Other standouts:
March from the Tomb- Way better than I had hoped for. It's not hard at all to get at least 5 mana of value from this, and sometimes your allies combo together in such a way that you just overwhelm your opponent. Getting both Druids back and making 4 plant tokens was one of my favorite plays of the night.
Angel of Renewal- Fliers are at a premium in this format, and this one has little competition for air superiority. Catching you up on life and triggering your allies makes this rather well-positioned.
Unified Front- Whenever you have a ally in play with an ability that stacks (Druids, Beastmaster) and you have 3+ colors, this just lets you go off. I shudder to think what would happen if I had a Tajiru Warcaller.
Tajiru Beastmaster- Filled its role admirably. Pump your tokens, provide a fat attacker/blocker, threaten to go off with a few more allies. It's not Warcaller, but it doesn't have to be.
Brood Butcher, Felidar Sovereign, Smothering Abomination, Ruinous Path- Yup, they're bombs.
Other observations:
Sheer Drop can be great, but don't forget that the Assassinate text can still leave you high and dry. I had to kill a 1/1 on a couple occasions just to get it out of my hand.
Around the room, Retreat to Valakut and Retreat to Coralhelm were downright awful. Retreat to Kazandu was acceptable, and Retreat to Emeria was great.
Molten Nursery can be a pain for this type of deck. Getting 16+ colorless spells looks very attainable in this format, so sometimes your tokens are just going to be blanked. Murk Strider and Ulamog's Reclaimer looked like 2 of the best payoffs for processor shenanigans.
In the finals, I faced the Felidar Sovereign mirror. It took exactly as long to finish this match as you think it did; I nearly lost to Sovereign's ability in one game before a timely Ruinous Path bailed me out.
Cubetutor Link
Still had a lot of fun, and there were a tonne of powerful decks going around. Mine was
1x Deathless Behemoth
1x Scatter to the Winds
1x Spell Shrivel
1x Snapping Gnarlid
1x Deathless Behemoth
1x Eyeless Watcher
2x Oran-Rief Invoker
2x Call the Scions
1x Windrider Patrol
2x Bone Splinters
1x Ruin Processor
1x Brood Monitor
1x Oblivion Sower
1x From Beyond
1x Benthic Infiltrator
1x Coastal Discovery
1x Kozilek's Channeler
1x Spawning Bed
1x Skyline Cascade
1x Swamp
1x Sunken Hollow
5x Island
7x Forest
As you can see, the deck was crawling with scions. Would have preferred a few of the more oppressive uncommon eldrazi like Breaker of Armies (which was a pretty big mvp at our store). Overall the deck was very strong, and I was very happy with it even with the mediocre finish. Really looking forward to drafting this set.
Had a very medicore pool with only ~zero big minions (my inner timmy is sad:/)
1x Tide Drifter
1x Mist Intruder
1x Kozilek's Sentinel
1x Benthic Infiltrator
2x Nettle Drone
1x Herald of Kozilek
1x Murk Strider
1x Incubator Drone
1x Cloud Manta
2x Kozilek's Channeler
1x Ulamog's Reclaimer
1x Endless One
1x Radiant Flames
1x Costal Discovery
1x Ugin's Insight
1x Gruesome Slaughter
1x Hedron Archive
1x Dampening Pulse
8x Mountain
10x Island
So I wanted to build around Gruesome Slaughter and I did sorta have the cards for it, though it was strong it didnt blow me away (though my colorless boys where probobly abit weak=/). Nettle Drone Was insane. Ugin's Insight was insane (especially with Ulamog's Reclaimer). Endless One was awsome because of its flexability. Radiant flames was more than good enough even though I only casted it with X=2.
Id that!
Trade with me, h:Alters and EdhFoils:)
Cards I have altered
Anticipate 1
Benthic Infiltrator 4
Blighted Cataract 1
Brood Monitor 1
Catacomb Sifter 1
Dampening Pulse 1
Dispel 2
Dutiful Return 1
Earthen Arms 3
Expedition Envoy 1
Felidar Cub 2
Ghostly Sentinel 1
Gideon's Reproach 2
Goblin War Paint 2
Hedron Blade 1
Horribly Awry 1
Incubator Drone 1
Kalastria Healer 1
Kalastria Nightwatch 2
Kor Castigator 1
Lifespring Druid 1
Makindi Sliderunner 2
Mind Raker 1
Murk Strider 1
Nettle Drone 1
Outnumber 1
Pilgrim's Eye 1
Plummet 1
Processor Assault 1
Reckless Cohort 1
Reclaiming Vines 1
Resolute Blademaster 1
Retreat to Coralhelm 1
Retreat to Kazandu 1
Rising Miasma 1
Roilmage's Trick 1
Salvage Drone 2
Shadow Glider 1
Shatterskull Recruit 1
Sheer Drop 1
Skitterskin 1
Slab Hammer 1
Sludge Crawler 2
Smite the Monstrous 1
Spawning Bed 1
Stasis Snare 1
Stonefury 1
Sure Strike 1
Swarm Surge 1
Swell of Growth 2
Tandem Tactics 3
Territorial Baloth 1
Touch of the Void 1
Turn Against 1
Ulamog's Despoiler 1
Valakut Invoker 1
Valakut Predator 1
Vestige of Emrakul 2
Volcanic Upheaval 1
My deck ended up being a red/white midrange deck that packed a LOT of removal (deck composition is shown in the images below). Being that this deck didn't run any mythics, I expected it to go 2-2 or maybe 3-1 if I got good matchups. What I did NOT expect was to 4-0 the prerelease and win every match 2-0.
1st matchup: Was playing a red/black deck that had some ingest effects and Drana. Nearly lost the first game due to opponent playing a turn 3 drana, but I managed to find a smite the Monstrous before things got too out of hand. He got me to around 5 or 6 life before I was able to rebound with Akoum Hellkite and Felidar Soverign. Game 2 was much more straightforward with removal clearing the way for my creatures. After the match, I suggested that he switch to red/white since he had good white creatures and Planar Outburst
2nd matchup: Played against an eldrazi ramp that ran Brutal Expulsion and the Lumbering Falls manland. Managed to take out his Eldrazi creatures using Smite the Monstrous in game 1. Akoum Hellkite was instrumental in winning that game. Game 2 was similar, although the hexproof Lumbering Falls gave me quite a bit of trouble. I did side out Makindi Sliderunner and 1 Gideon's Reproach with the cards under the "notable sideboard cards" image.
3rd matchup: Played against a UW awaken deck that had a promo Planar outburst *and* Gideon. Had to deal with a turn 4 Gideon in game 1. I was *barely* able to take it out with a combination of a Touch of the Void and Nettle Drone. It was another close and interactive game that got me to 5 life, but Felidar Sovereign helped me stabilize and deal with the scion tokens that his blue creatures gave me. Game 2 was a bit slower, but less pressurizing since he only played creatures this time. Angelic Captain was an all-star in both games, and strangely enough, Pilgrim's eye.
4th matchup. Played against a blue green deck that made a LOT of use of the taplands AND the lumbering falls land. Game 1 saw me on the backfoot as he was able to apply huge pressure using Looming Spires and Sandstone Bridge. Felidar Soverign and Akoum Hellkite again played a big role in turning the tide. Game 2 saw me facing up against the same scenarios and an Endless One casted for 10 mana, which met a quick end with Smite the Monstrous. He was able to deal with Felidar Sovereign this time, so I had to hold off the ground until Akoum Hellkite could start dealing damage.
Overall, it was MUCH more interactive prerelease than the one in Magic Origins, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I also like the fact that the 4-0 prerelease broke the 2-2 continuous losing prerelease streak that I experienced ever since Khans of Tarkir.
The other 5-0 and I played "for fun" after to see who would win and he stomped me 0-3. His deck had ridiculous bombs and he's a strong player - glad I didn't have to play him for real.
My pool was garbage. I opened 0 mythics, 3 land rares, a glorified Cancel, few good early drops, and basically no Scion producers or big Eldrazi. I just sleeved up a pile of mediocre commons and tempo spells, 0 bombs, 0 mass removal, and it seemed to get the job done. I think I benefitted from ekeing out edges with 2-for-1s, synergy, and effective sideboarding. Also, the competition at prereleases tends to be weak. More casual players and players who haven't figured out the format yet.
I saw a lot of people do well with UB control. There are good answers and a lot of potential 2-for-1s in the format. The aggro archetypes suffer from lack of the synergy you would get in draft, while with control you can just grind people out and save answers for their few bombs.
1 Coralhelm Guide
1 Desolation Twin
1 Drowner of Hope
1 Eldrazi Devastator
1 Incubator Drone
1 Murk Strider
2 Oran-Rief Invoker
1 Skyrider Elf
1 Territorial Baloth
1 Tide Drifter
1 Void Attendant
1 From Beyond
1 Gruesome Slaughter
1 Retreat to Kazandu
1 Seek the Wilds
1 Tightening Coils
1 Titan's Presence
1 Unnatural Aggression
8 Forest
8 Island
Never drew the 10/10. Maybe just as well, as I likely would never have been able to cast it.
Signature courtesy of Rivenor and Miraculous Recovery
EDH Altered Cards by Galspanic (Seriously, this guy's awesome.)
My Pauper Cube
Tapped-Out Simulator
My Trade Thread
-Decks-
Commander:
GWR Rith, the Awakener RWG
U Kami of the Crescent Moon U (Flagship Deck)
BW Teysa, Orzhov Scion WB
Under Construction:
UBR Crosis, the Purger RBU
Cube:
WUBRGX Pauper XGRBUW
overall, the card im the most glad i included was Part The Waterveil. literally won me the game everytime i landed it. i was pretty dissapointed in the overall strength of the big eldrazi, and feel like ulamog is the only one with any potential. it seemed like every one i got out just ended up trading to clear a bit of the board. there wasnt really enough "oomph" to them, and i felt on the brink of losing every game and that they were just a cry of desperation to stall the game a another turn or two. Usually ended up winning from drones swinging in damage over time or from landing a Part the waterveil.
in every game i played, the scions felt pretty useless as anything but chump blockers. because of the high mana cost of all of the scion creating spells, your opponent usually had several threats on the board that would end up killing you if you didn't chump with the scions.
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
1 Bane of Bala Ged
1 Looming Spires
2 Tajuru Beastmaster
1 Call The Scions
1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
1 Tajuru Warcaller
1 Hedron Archive
1 Akoum Stonewaker
1 Nissa's Renewal
1 Vestige of Emrakul
2 Natural Connection
1 Belligerent Whiptail
1 Giant Mantis
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Ondu Champion
1 Breaker of Armies
1 Shatterskull Recruit
1 Unnatural Aggression
1 Lavastep Raider
1 Tajuru Stalwart
1 Reckless Cohort
1 Void Winnower
8 Forest
7 Mountain
Omnath, Winnower, Breaker, and Conduit had to be my allstars in the matches because they changed things in my favor and always shook the opponent when they saw me play them. In one of the matches, I was able to play Omnath and then Nissa's Renewal the next turn and my opponent simply said "Welp, I'm screwed". I had plenty of ways to hit the mana on the field when I needed it but I should have placed some creature removal. I do want to see what I can do with Omnath and Nissa Worldwaker, maybe with Kiora, Master of the Depths in the future.
I basically overpowered everyone, except for round 4, where I played a Esper deck that had tons of removal and just keep breaking down my bombs, one after another. I had a really good time playing though, and I think this is the best I have ever done in a pre-release. Opened an Ulamog in the bonus packs which is nice.
2x Swarm Surge which gave me an alternate way to win by pumping all of my small ingest creatures. It is especially potent after making some Eldrazi Scion tokens.
3x Benthic Infiltrator whose 4 toughness was oftentimes a brick wall that could enable my processors once the board was more stable.
1x Ulamog's Nullifier. When it works, it's awesome. You counter their spell and end their turn with a new 2/3 flier.
1x Spawning Bed was awesome every time I drew it.
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited I only played twice but it did some major work both times.
I found that the strategy works much better when you're on the play than on the draw because you need to get attacks in to get your engine going.
UBRGrixis Kiki Control
BGUSultai Shadow
GWRBushwhacker Zoo
EDH:
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose
GWU Roon of the Hidden Realm
Graham from Loading Ready Run
2 Sandstone Bridge
1 Skyline Cascade
1 Looming Spires
1 Fertile Thicket
1 Lumbering Falls
6 Plains
5 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Kor Castigator
1 Eldrazi Skyspawner
1 Shadow Glider
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Ruination Guide
1 Cloud Manta
1 Woodland Wanderer
2 Ondu Greathorn
1 Resolute Blademaster
1 Angel of Renewal
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Bane of Bala Ged
1 Clutch of Currents
1 Horribly Awry
1 Encircling Fissure
1 Spell Shrivel
2 Roil Spout
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Turn Against
The card that most impressed me was Roil Spout. I was already pretty high on the card going in, but my goodness is it the real deal or what. It's backbreaking on 3 or 6 and was always a good draw.
Honorable mention goes to Spell Shrivel. Despite the abundance of mana people had, there was only a single time a spell I wanted to counter could be paid for. I was really happy to have one in my deck, and it was great at securing wins after untapping with Gideon or Bane of Bala Ged. I'm going to be actively looking to get 1 or 2 in drafts.
Turns out I didn't get my wish. (pool had 6 green cards total)
Rares were Shambling vent, Quarantine field, Cinder Glade, Veteran Warleader, Drowner of Hope, Guardian of Tazeem (promo) Drana, Liberator of Malakir.
Whilst white looked tempting it felt like a bit of a trap, and my blue was big on processors, but weak on the ingest front.
In the end I went for the R/B Aggro strategy.
1 Grip of Desolation
1 Turn against
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Outnumber
1 Touch of the Void
Creatures
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Shatterskull Recruit
1 Skitterskin
1 Vestige of Emrakul
1 Ondu Champion
1 Kozilek's Sentinel
2 Culling Drone
3 Makindi Sliderunner
1 Forerunner of Slaughter
1 Valakut Invoker
1 Dominator Drone
1 Valakut Predator
1 Retreat to Valakut
1 Tunneling Geopede
10 Mountain
7 Swamp
1 Blighted fen
34 Players meant 6 Rounds, raced to 4-0, then lost out to a sweet blue/red tempo deck, went under most other opponents (usually quickly, and 2-0)
Went 5-1 for 2nd place. Drana was unsurprisingly amazing in all my games she appeared. (As was rolling Thunder) Makindi Sliderunners were excellent as were both Retreat to Valakut and the forerunner of slaughter.
Turn against was surprisingly never relevant all tournament
unexpected MVP goes to Outnumber. Surprisingly relevant for keeping the board clear early and enabling the beatdown.
I think people weren't expecting this strategy as much and for everyone who could, or felt they had to, go full bore aggression I feel like they will have been rewarded in Spades.
Went 2-2-1 with a very uneven Black-Red aggro with a grinding late game. Did not get any bomb rares (two Prism Arrays!), so the deck instead revolved around just trying to go all out early with small creatures. Turn one Sludge Crawler, turn two Kozilek's Sentinel, turn three Pilgrim's Eye (Did not have a good three drop), turn four Swarm Surge. Swinging for ten power first strike on turn four, when a lot of the decks in this format are very slow to get off the ground.
I'd have Zulaport Cutthroat, Bone Splinters, and just willingly trading off my creatures for the end game. At a certain point I could just finish with sacrificing random cards to Barrage Tyrant (the only rare I played) and a Touch of the Void.
The draw ran out of time because I was playing against a Blue-Black control that was able to keep almost everything I could cast off the board, but my grinding assault finished him with four cards left in my library. Didn't have enough time for the next game.
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
I went 0-2 before I got paired against beginner players and finished 2-2.