MTG Salvation

Hey,

So, I got kind of hosed on good rares in a pre-release again, but built a fast and grindy deck to manage a 3-1 result and win myself a shiny pack of RIX. These are the other rares that I pulled :

1 Boneyard Parley - are you effin' kidding me...seriously? Would I even live long enough to cast this?
1 River's Rebuke - good card, but I am not in blue and this is not splashable.
1 Brass's Bounty - what on God's green earth am I supposed to do with this.
1 Seafloor Oracle - at least it is a creature, but I can't build around him.
1 Radiant Destiny - half my guys are pirates and half are vampires, what am I supposed to choose?
PROMO FOIL - Deeproot Elite - no thanks, I am not into merfolk.

This is the pile that managed the 3-1 record:



Let me know how your pre-release go, did you strike the jackpot in your packs or did you have to do it the hard way like me?

Well, I am almost ashamed to say it aloud, but I got yet ANOTHER ridiculous pool, fourth in the row. For the record, I did 5-0 on Amonkhet, 4-1 on HoD with absurd RG pool with Samut (the creature) with 5 of 7 rares playabe and on-color, 5-0 on Ixalan (UGr winning on Carnage Tyrant and River's Rebuke), and now also 5-0.

The promo was Silent Gravestone; but the RIX packs gave me Path of Mettle, THREE(!) legendary elders Nezahal, Tetzimoc AND Zacama, plus a foil Slaughter of Strong as bonus rare. The Ixalan packs added Deadeye Tracker (meh) and Verdant Sun's Avatar (!!!)

Add the fact that the Ixalan packs had Savage Stomp, Ranging Raptors and Raging Swordtooth. If the cards started dancing and screameing at me "PLAY DINOSAURS!!" at this moment, I would not be surprised. RIX added the Knight that makes your dinos cost 2 less, a crapload of red removal (Bombard, Reckless Rage), and some top quality dinos like Charging Tuskodon, Stampeding Horncrest,Frilled Deathspitter,Relentless Raptor, and especially Needletooth Raptor.

I built Naya dinos and just wrecked faces.

The only match I came close to losing was round 2, when I was on 2 life. But then I got my seventh mana and played Verdant Sun's Avatar, followed it by some other dinos, survived two more attacks and finally got to cast Zacama, who immediatelly Naturalized a Baffling End (on Orazca Frillback) and Ixalan's Binding (on Raging Swordtooth). I ended the game at 37 life.

MVPs:

Needletooth Raptor. This card is absurd under a good setup. I managed to kill four creatures with it, when I Savage Stomped it to fight a 2/1, shoot a 2/5 flyer by enrage, and a turn later killed another his creature with Reckless Rage, targeted the Raptor by the 2 damage and shoot another 4/4 (and the Raptor still lived thanks to the +1/+1 counter from Stomp). Finally I traded it for a blessed Dusk Charger.

Tilonalli's Crown - far more stronger and usable that it seems at first sight. Dropped T3 on Relentless Raptor or later to Charging Tuskodon (another VERY useful card), it was always good. And as an enrage enabler no less.

Zacama was basically game over. I got to cast him four or five times, and with the mentioned exception of naturalizing the O-rings, I usually just shoot his board to next Tuesday.

Will write the deck up later here.

Overall, another excellent event for me. I liked it a lot.

I saw City's Blessing was easy to get naturally, which was great for my opponents who had great cards to take advantage of it. I didn't open one Ascend card in the entire pool. Went 2-3 with one of the wins being the first round bye. Rares/tribes all over the place. Ended up RW, because that's where all my removal was but it was all attacking/blocking based or a Repeating Barrage, no exile or Pacifism enchantments. Got wrecked by a Form of the Dinosaur in rd 2, Nezahal in rd 4, and Ghalta in rd 5 (who managed to Tendershoot Dryad with City's Blessing into Ghalta in both of his wins).

I went 3-0 off the back of Tendershoot Dryad. I had 2 in my pool, and any time I resolved it, i basically won. That card is super bonkers in limited.

Here is the 5-0 deck I reference above:

My day was crazy as it was entirely defined by Profane Procession. In my morning, PvP event, all three of my opponents had it - and drew it! - in every game I played. It was freaking insane. My card pool had zero enchantment hate so I was basically screwed. I only managed one game win in that 3-match series thanks to a hexproof flier.

In my afternoon, 2HG event, I opened up 2 Profane Processions and proceeded to draw one of them in all three rounds - and both of them in my second round. We went 3-0 on its back.

That card is dumb.

I went 2-2

Both of my losses were to mana-screw in the third games of match. I played 17 lands + traveler's amulet nut in one instance I got double zero-land hands. In the two losses I never saw more than 3 lands. Oh well.

I also got the limited bomb form of the dinosaur but never drew it in 11 games. The other bomb I got was Hadana's Climb and it was very good. I once dealt 18 damage off a single creature attacking with it.

I unsleeved my decks, so this is from memory:



MVP: Hadana's Climb, Shapers of Nature

Climb is just really good and the fact that it triggers (+1/+1 counter) the turn you play it is great and it just builds up.
Shapers is as good as it was in Ixalan.

Solid: See Red, Captain's Hook (I like Dinosaur Pirates), Unfriendly fire

See red is efficient. In the format, +2 power at first strike just gets pass almost anything. Back by removal it always performed.
Hook is similarly great due to menace. I got two-for-one off it all day.
Unfriendly Fire going to faces just finished a few game my opp thought he was about to win.

They also combo off each other. First strike + menace + removal is just brutal.

Quote from jwhizz »

I went 3-0 off the back of Tendershoot Dryad. I had 2 in my pool, and any time I resolved it, i basically won. That card is super bonkers in limited.

It was my promo. First few games I didn’t see it, next few games it drew removal quick, but the last two times it landed for me it won me the game. I even once had to sac an army of saps to Slaughter the Strong - but because I kept my Dryad alone, it rebuilt the army and won.

4-1 day, 6th place in a 40 pool. Naya Dino. Lived the dream combo of Forerunner of the Empire into Bellowing Aegisaur multiple times.

Opened with a quick 2-0 thumping loss to a 12 year old packing twin Zetalpas and The Immortal Sun. Thought I might have a rough day ahead and considered doing a wholesale changeover to Merfolk but stuck with Dinos and won the next four matches. That kid took 2nd place in the event.

I won prizes each time so that was nice. My pulls were crap, however. I had decent removal but that's about it, Nothing overly exciting.

I went 4-1 with an ultra fast BR pirate deck - except the match I lost due to bad draws, almost all other games was me winning turn 5-6 while still at 20 life before they really did anything. I had the forerunner and the red Elder dino as back-up plan, but I could have as well dropped them, I got to the point of casting the red elder only once for it to be waterknotted right away.

I had both the Captain's Hook and the Pirate's Cutlass, but the key card was Buccaneer's Bravado, I had two of those and it was killer.

Generally it went something like:
Turn 1 a one drop (I had about 5 of those)
Turn 2 Goblin Trailblazer
Turn 3 Pirate's Cutlass swing for 4+
Turn 4 give it double strike, swing for 8+, with menace it's rare they already had 2 creatures, and in that case i had some removal.

I managed to go 5-1 with what felt like a pretty standard BW vampires build in terms of creatures, although I got lucky to get Elenda, Radiant Destiny, and Profane Procession in my pool, as well as 4-5 pieces of solid removal (Luminous Bonds, Golden Demise, Impale, Moment of Craving, and Legion's Judgment). I think the standout was Golden Demise, playing that with City's Blessing was back breaking for a lot of opponents. Strangely Elenda didn't perform too well in all but a single game where she died as a 6/6 while I had Radiant Destiny with CB which ended up being rather insane.

I can also add to what a previous posted mentioned about Profane Procession in limited, it was absolutely unbeatable in a couple of games. It completely turns stalemates around and I can see it probably becoming a favorite in RIX sealed.