Well I dont have much to say about the tournies except that BWg seems to be too good (thats all I really drafted) and Poisonbelly Ogres are better then people think. But I did end the weekend with:
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Steam Vents
4 Godless Shrine
4 Angel of Despair
4 Abyssal Nocturnus
3 of the Djinn Illumanitus (sorry I cant spell today)
2 Niv-Mizzet
And a bunch of other stuff. I cant believe I got a playset of duals more then a week before the set came out, I was so stoked.
Wow! Way to go! Between the cards I received at the flights themselves and the prize packs I won, I came home with a total of 20 new rares incl. 14 GP. I was frankly disappointed in almost all the rares I got, and played with very few of them... although getting the one Loxodon Hierarch was nice.
But I'm not worried... My sons and I pre-ordered a booster case of GP; when it comes each of us will open 54 packs; I'm confident there will be some good ones in there.
My local store runs Extended tournaments on Sat. nights, and every 2nd Sat of the month they do 2HG. The guy requires Extended-legal construction on all decks, even for these 2HG tourneys. His logic is that if somebody comes in and is unaware that he does 2HG that particular night, said person will have brought his/her extended deck with him. This way, everybody can still participate but the playing field is level.
I went to the Sunday event with my three sons (16, 18 and 19 years old each). We each played in 2 32-player flights.
First Flight:
Of the four of us, my oldest did the best, going 3-0 and agreeing to a draw in the 4th; won him 9 packs. He played Izzet mostly; particularly liked the Wee Dragonauts. I lost the fist match pretty quickly, tweaked my deck and lost the second match... at least more slowly. I was out of the running for any prizes but decided to try at least to improve my standing. I did in fact win the last two matches.
I wasn't happy with the deck; it started as B/W Orzhov then I splashed some blue in (seemed the best of all options); it did in fact play better as seen by the last 2 matches. Cards that worked well for me: Ostiary Thrull, Order of the Stars, Blind Hunter, Mourning thrull. One card that really hurt me: that 8/5 red rare elemental (can't remember the name).
Second Flight
Liked my deck better; playedf B/W again and splashed some red. First match, I managed to Castigate a Niv-Mizzet from my opponent's hand early on and it went downhill for him from there. He resigned the match after the one game. Second match, in one game got mana screwed for 4 turns and had to discard cards as a result; very painful but the other fellow's deck wasn't doing a lot better and I was able to finally get a 3rd land and hold him off with Disembowel, Pillory of the Sleepless (on his Burning Tree Shaman), Castigate again (he lost a galvanic Arc that way), and Douse In Gloom until I could develop my mana base and get my own creatures into play. Used an Exhumer Thrull to get another ET from the graveyard (discarded early on during the "screw" phase), which in turn pulled another creature out (don't remember which one - Graven Dominator, maybe?). Enchanted one with Fencer's Magemark and other with Hypervolt Grasp. Third and last round my opponent and agreed to a draw, bringing us both to 2-0-1.
My oldest didn't do as well this flight; went 1-2. Other two sons did similar.
Wow! Way to go! Between the cards I received at the flights themselves and the prize packs I won, I came home with a total of 20 new rares incl. 14 GP. I was frankly disappointed in almost all the rares I got, and played with very few of them... although getting the one Loxodon Hierarch was nice.
But I'm not worried... My sons and I pre-ordered a booster case of GP; when it comes each of us will open 54 packs; I'm confident there will be some good ones in there.
All this $$$...
Seems to work out fine; we all enjoy ourselves.
First Flight:
Of the four of us, my oldest did the best, going 3-0 and agreeing to a draw in the 4th; won him 9 packs. He played Izzet mostly; particularly liked the Wee Dragonauts. I lost the fist match pretty quickly, tweaked my deck and lost the second match... at least more slowly. I was out of the running for any prizes but decided to try at least to improve my standing. I did in fact win the last two matches.
I wasn't happy with the deck; it started as B/W Orzhov then I splashed some blue in (seemed the best of all options); it did in fact play better as seen by the last 2 matches. Cards that worked well for me: Ostiary Thrull, Order of the Stars, Blind Hunter, Mourning thrull. One card that really hurt me: that 8/5 red rare elemental (can't remember the name).
Second Flight
Liked my deck better; playedf B/W again and splashed some red. First match, I managed to Castigate a Niv-Mizzet from my opponent's hand early on and it went downhill for him from there. He resigned the match after the one game. Second match, in one game got mana screwed for 4 turns and had to discard cards as a result; very painful but the other fellow's deck wasn't doing a lot better and I was able to finally get a 3rd land and hold him off with Disembowel, Pillory of the Sleepless (on his Burning Tree Shaman), Castigate again (he lost a galvanic Arc that way), and Douse In Gloom until I could develop my mana base and get my own creatures into play. Used an Exhumer Thrull to get another ET from the graveyard (discarded early on during the "screw" phase), which in turn pulled another creature out (don't remember which one - Graven Dominator, maybe?). Enchanted one with Fencer's Magemark and other with Hypervolt Grasp. Third and last round my opponent and agreed to a draw, bringing us both to 2-0-1.
My oldest didn't do as well this flight; went 1-2. Other two sons did similar.
I'm feeling very good about Orzhov at this piont.
Looking forward to the local Release tournament!