For my second prerelease, a bit more of a mixed bag. Drew bombs in every colour - jace, hanweir garrison, angel of deliverance, heron's grace champion, dark salvation..... But little in the way of removal which made thong slightly challenging. Decided to try and experiment a little to learn more about the format so went with a UW tempo/skies build since I was shallow in green, lacked the spell support to go into UR and had played BW the previous day.
Match one was against a super aggro BR deck that threatened to overwhelm me early game one but got back into the game with my high toughness blue dudes. Dropped a true-faith censer on a wretched gryff and he simply didn't have an answer. Game two he dropped two red pingers and hanweir garrison but got blown out by everyone's favourite mvp borrowed grace and got stomped by my angel whilst he attempted to reestablish his board giving me a two one.
Match two was a mess for me. R with a small amount of u which had me at zero by turn 7 game one. Game two I landed and kept out a Jace but simply all my fliers got answered while I just couldn't take out his fatties due to lack of any real removal. 0-2
Decided at this point to completely changed tacks and ripped out the blue factor completely as I realised I hated drawing 80% of my U cards. Chucked in a ton of red combat tricks and pump along with the more aggressive werewolves and vampires.
Game 3 was GR and he had put together a respectable ramp list being able to power out a Vildin-Pack Outcast by turn 3 and backed up with a plenty of burn, taking out my garrison and smoldering werewolf easily. Made an extremely stupid mistake in forgetting werewolves transform back only on the upkeep and wasted a decent combat trick trying to mess up his board. Managed to get some big swings in our games but still left at 0-2.
Match 4 was possibly one of the most exciting matches I've played of limited. He was playing an interesting BUG emerge/self mill deck with plenty of ways to refill his hand and draw. First game resulted in a board stall after some heated early trades and constant bounce on any of the threats I transformed into. After dropping and swinging with my angel he alpha striked into me with his superiour 4-5 ground dudes but a desperate blessed alliance for the untap on the angel into a +0/+2 borrowed grace forces a scoop after a particularily bloody combat step levels him open. Game 2 he played a great tempo game countering my dudes and bouncing back to my hand any threats I had. Despite a 14 damage swing to the face with some double strike shenanigans I was overwhelmed by emerged eldrazi hitting me for a shed load. Game 3 had another ground stall making me feel fairly anxious about getting through the damage due to westvale abbey tokens popping up in the late game but he was simply unable to attack profitably. After a while he sacked a ton of dudes and flipped the alley. Dropped Sigardian priest to tap it down just in time but he followed up with a docent of perfection. Realising I had exactly lethal damage on the board thanks to blood mist but only 3 life left I gulped, tapped down the docent instead of leaving the priest up and prayed he had no flash creatures in hand. He didn't. Phew.
Probably the worst result I've had in sealed since I got back into the game, but fantastic time. Very much enjoying the set and the mechanics and finding the cards a lot more interesting than I thought at first glance. If I had a problem, I do believe that Blue seems a lot weaker than the other colours unless you pull off the spirits or spells matter decks and that white seems to have the best playables at common and uncommon by some way.
Suprising no-one, Sigardian Priest is absolutely great in this format being able to deal with just about anything for one mana a turn. I wasn't expecting too much from blood mist because of it's timing restrictions and that but it's just crazy good with any of the big werewolves in the set. Just breaks the ground stalls you get into with red by making it impossible to stop your transformed dudes from either trading for insane value or hitting to face for silly amounts of damage.
I have a couple of standouts. Markov Crusader was great at winning any race and is a pretty decent threat at uncommon - the haste is gravy (shows you how stupid good gisela is). Likewise, geist-fuelled scarecrow is a suprisingly powerful card - 4/4 is a very relevant body in the format and the downside is pretty neglible if you play around it and can slot easily into any deck. Borrowed Grace is probably the best common I played with today - if you get them, play them and if you don't, be real careful of people with white mana up. It can do some suprisjngly nasty things. Also, although it's an SOI card shout out to grotesque mutation for a card that can totally swing the game in your favour with good timing. Same with borrowed malevolence. For a 1-3 mana common it's extraordinarily flexible.
On the other side of things, Eternal Scourge is a card that felt overhyped to me. His ability isn't as relevant as it seems as he isn't enough of a threat on his own to really change the game and his lack of evasion or haste hurts a lot. Not to mention, it's stupidly easy for the opponent to bounce him with combat tricks or ping abilities which just wastes your mana. He's still a 3 mana 3/3 but he isn't as good as he was made out to me in my (limited) experience. The lack of madness in the newer set made Olivia's Dragoon and call of the bloodline pretty scrappy in my deck, but depends on your pulls I guess. I saw a couple of people play Oath of liliana .... Don't do that.
Mechanics... In my experience, emerge is good but not crazy, delerium is easy to achieve and can be game changing if you build for it, madness feels a bit thin on the ground with only two packs of SOI, I like that transforming is easier to deal with since you don't have to remember all the triggers and all the escelate cards seem ppayable.
Came in with a hell of a hangover and opened a very average pack. Blue was pretty dang awful despite opening a very pretty promo Niblis of Frost and red lacked much creatures so I went with a white/black build focusing on evasion and combat tricks to push through damage. My friends opted for a solid UW Skies with Gisella and other hard hitting flyers and a damn powerful UW spirits/tempo build with spell queller, niblis of frost »AND mausoleum wanderer. I was envious. Here's my deck:
Match one was against a GB deck that didn't seem to know what it wanted to do - had some werewolves and stuff with a bit of removal. Game one I just hummed up the ground and locked down or killed anything that could stop my flyers getting through and wiped most of his board when he attempted a counter attack by using borrowed grace. Game two he seemed to struggle to find anything useful and I just used Noosegraf mob to quixly overwhelm him along with Markov Crusader to prevent him from hitting back.
Match 2 was against a vicious RW aggro deck with Gisella, Avacyn, the rare white and red escelate spells and the new red blowout spell I forget the names of. So a fairly good draw for him. Game one I used Faith Unbroken on his Gisella, pumping my markov crusader and he couldn't keep up with the massive life swings in my favour and he completely ran out of gas. Game two I mulled and kept a hand with no black sources and was overrun by the time the swamps started turning up. Game three I applied early game pressure with a few two drops before he could get any creatures online but he retaliated with the huge red spell I still can't remember and wiped out my entire board. Despite this blowout I returned and started beating down with fliers using grotesque mutation to stabalise myself ans outracing him. He showed me afterwards that he was just about to boardwipe again which would have finished me. Quite close that one.
Match 3 i played against a very synergistic and well put together GW deck piloted by a very skilled player. First game he got a decent amounts of threats out but I was beating him down slowly until he turned it around with a very well timed spirit that boosts toughness that just wiped me out. Second game his creatures outmatched me on the ground and despite me trying to bait him into a Borrowed Grace trap, he didn't fall for it and grinder out the win easily. Very well played by my opponent and was nice enough to give me pointers on my deck construction.
Lastly.... Remember I said my friend had an absurdly synergistic UW spirits/tempo deck? Yeah, he was my last match and we were both at 2-1. Game one was a beat down bonanza with both of us slipping past each other to deliver big damage early. Despite taking down a bunch of his fliers, he still outmatched me in the air and a choking restraints to destroy my faithed crusader releasing his niblis sealed the game for him - on 2 life. Game 2 swung my way after I capitalised on a the combat tricks I had played the previous game and left mana open to make him believe I had powerful instants available (i was holding land about half the time) and he attempted to play around it until he hit very low life and I alpha striked forcing through a beater who won the game with a mutation. Last game was a bit anti climatic. I got an early couple of beaters down whilst he failed to establish a board presence before turn 4 - when my removal turned on and I killed or locked down every creature he tried to play.
All in all, not a bad day. I'll have to see if I can beat my 3-1 tomorrow...
EDIT: Sorry for the poor spelling and grammar. It's suprisingly hard to post on my phone.
Ulamog. 10 mana is a lot but this set has the tools to make it work. Worst case scenario, we don't pull the ramp we need and can't use him but that's a risk you take with a lot of first pick bombs. Best case scenario? He wins games.
Just chipping in to say the Elderazi one is quite a lot better- seems to win about 70% of the time - Zendikar deck doesn't really have the synergy or answers it needs to be balanced.
Guardians of Meletis was awesome at stopping renown beatdowns and enabling me to go on the offence in the next couple of turns.
Stalwart Aven was massively underestimated and drew very little removal in any of my games and he was an all star. Chips away at players with no reach or flying and is after he hits renown he's suprisingly difficult to attack through without losing dudes.
Gonna echo what everyone said about Sentinel of the Eternal Watch. A creature that shrugs off burn, hits hard enough to take out 90% of things coming it way, has vigilance and an ability that can't even be shut off by tapping it off that acts as retargetable removal. Yes please. Lived the dream and cast Tragic Arrogance with it in play. High point of my day.
Llanowar Empath was A LOT better than I thought. He comes out just after I start dropping my defensive dudes and really helped me draw into what I needed and trades decently if the other player hasn't been pushing renown or pump hard enough.
First sealed deck for me since Kamigawa... went 3-1 so very happy with the result.
Picked white, like absolutely everyone wanted to, but ended up missing out on the Topan Freeblade action and didn't draw any in my pool, but had pretty decent pulls aside from that so played midrange GW. Suprising noone Tragic Arrogance was completely insane in sealed, especially when complimented by a nice white removal suite of 2 Celestial Flare, 2 Swift Reckoning and Suppression Bonds to hold the fort and make them overextend.
Went 2-0 against a deathtouch heavy GB aggro deck, 2-0 against a WU mill deck, lost 2-1 to the eventual winner who played a sweet RG deck that overwhelmed me with multiple Pharika’s Disciples and Undercity Trolls and took 2-0 against my friend playing RW aggro.
One weird thing I noticed - in our pool of players, at least 3 people were running Sphinx’s Tutelage and attempting to grind out the game. Literally never saw this work out for them in practice, although a few of them went 2-2. Anyone try this and get any success? Seems in this format that's just a waste of time?
Card advantage pure and simple. Divination is good. If we're looking to be aggressive I'd rather stick with trying to push into more gas than hold back with a flier in the hope I kill a dude on the defence.
I'm not seeing nearly enough power in green personally to warrent it... so WB? Decent removal, enchantment synergy with Blightcaster and a flipwalker. For me Green here is just... eww. I almost never play Black but would definitely pick it over Green here.
What don't you like about green? It has 2 removal spells, 2 closers (spider and hydra), a couple of card draw possibilities..."ew" doesn't really give me much information...I'm pretty exicted to played all of the green spells in my build except maybe Orchard spirit, which is still a fine card.
Sorry that's my bad,I was responding to Necarg's post. Edited my last post to make it clearer. I would definitely agree with you on the other pool.
Sealed pool This pool is either WG or WB. Any thoughts?
I'm not seeing nearly enough power in green personally to warrent it... so WB? Decent removal, enchantment synergy with Blightcaster and a flipwalker. For me Green here is just... eww. I almost never play Black but would definitely pick it over Green here.
I'm honestly suprised that we're sticking with the recluse... seems we should at least try and secure a different colour as it looks like white is not happening for us? I'm sure it's probably the right choice and I'm being a noob though...
Match one was against a super aggro BR deck that threatened to overwhelm me early game one but got back into the game with my high toughness blue dudes. Dropped a true-faith censer on a wretched gryff and he simply didn't have an answer. Game two he dropped two red pingers and hanweir garrison but got blown out by everyone's favourite mvp borrowed grace and got stomped by my angel whilst he attempted to reestablish his board giving me a two one.
Match two was a mess for me. R with a small amount of u which had me at zero by turn 7 game one. Game two I landed and kept out a Jace but simply all my fliers got answered while I just couldn't take out his fatties due to lack of any real removal. 0-2
Decided at this point to completely changed tacks and ripped out the blue factor completely as I realised I hated drawing 80% of my U cards. Chucked in a ton of red combat tricks and pump along with the more aggressive werewolves and vampires.
Game 3 was GR and he had put together a respectable ramp list being able to power out a Vildin-Pack Outcast by turn 3 and backed up with a plenty of burn, taking out my garrison and smoldering werewolf easily. Made an extremely stupid mistake in forgetting werewolves transform back only on the upkeep and wasted a decent combat trick trying to mess up his board. Managed to get some big swings in our games but still left at 0-2.
Match 4 was possibly one of the most exciting matches I've played of limited. He was playing an interesting BUG emerge/self mill deck with plenty of ways to refill his hand and draw. First game resulted in a board stall after some heated early trades and constant bounce on any of the threats I transformed into. After dropping and swinging with my angel he alpha striked into me with his superiour 4-5 ground dudes but a desperate blessed alliance for the untap on the angel into a +0/+2 borrowed grace forces a scoop after a particularily bloody combat step levels him open. Game 2 he played a great tempo game countering my dudes and bouncing back to my hand any threats I had. Despite a 14 damage swing to the face with some double strike shenanigans I was overwhelmed by emerged eldrazi hitting me for a shed load. Game 3 had another ground stall making me feel fairly anxious about getting through the damage due to westvale abbey tokens popping up in the late game but he was simply unable to attack profitably. After a while he sacked a ton of dudes and flipped the alley. Dropped Sigardian priest to tap it down just in time but he followed up with a docent of perfection. Realising I had exactly lethal damage on the board thanks to blood mist but only 3 life left I gulped, tapped down the docent instead of leaving the priest up and prayed he had no flash creatures in hand. He didn't. Phew.
Probably the worst result I've had in sealed since I got back into the game, but fantastic time. Very much enjoying the set and the mechanics and finding the cards a lot more interesting than I thought at first glance. If I had a problem, I do believe that Blue seems a lot weaker than the other colours unless you pull off the spirits or spells matter decks and that white seems to have the best playables at common and uncommon by some way.
On the other side of things, Eternal Scourge is a card that felt overhyped to me. His ability isn't as relevant as it seems as he isn't enough of a threat on his own to really change the game and his lack of evasion or haste hurts a lot. Not to mention, it's stupidly easy for the opponent to bounce him with combat tricks or ping abilities which just wastes your mana. He's still a 3 mana 3/3 but he isn't as good as he was made out to me in my (limited) experience. The lack of madness in the newer set made Olivia's Dragoon and call of the bloodline pretty scrappy in my deck, but depends on your pulls I guess. I saw a couple of people play Oath of liliana .... Don't do that.
Mechanics... In my experience, emerge is good but not crazy, delerium is easy to achieve and can be game changing if you build for it, madness feels a bit thin on the ground with only two packs of SOI, I like that transforming is easier to deal with since you don't have to remember all the triggers and all the escelate cards seem ppayable.
1 Guardian of Pilgrims
1 Moorland Drifter
1 Olivia's Dragoon
1 Eternal Scourge
1 Dawn Gryff
1 Weirded Vampire
1 Fiend Binder
1 Geist-Fueled Scarecrow
1 Markov Crusader
1 Emissary of the Sleepless
1 Midnight Scavengers
1 Noosegraf Mob
1 Dusk Feaster
1 Borrowed Malevolence
1 Faith Unbroken
1 Grotesque Mutation
1 Call the Bloodline
1 Cultist's Staff
1 Choking Restraints
1 Throttle
1 Borrowed Grace
1 Certain Death
Match one was against a GB deck that didn't seem to know what it wanted to do - had some werewolves and stuff with a bit of removal. Game one I just hummed up the ground and locked down or killed anything that could stop my flyers getting through and wiped most of his board when he attempted a counter attack by using borrowed grace. Game two he seemed to struggle to find anything useful and I just used Noosegraf mob to quixly overwhelm him along with Markov Crusader to prevent him from hitting back.
Match 2 was against a vicious RW aggro deck with Gisella, Avacyn, the rare white and red escelate spells and the new red blowout spell I forget the names of. So a fairly good draw for him. Game one I used Faith Unbroken on his Gisella, pumping my markov crusader and he couldn't keep up with the massive life swings in my favour and he completely ran out of gas. Game two I mulled and kept a hand with no black sources and was overrun by the time the swamps started turning up. Game three I applied early game pressure with a few two drops before he could get any creatures online but he retaliated with the huge red spell I still can't remember and wiped out my entire board. Despite this blowout I returned and started beating down with fliers using grotesque mutation to stabalise myself ans outracing him. He showed me afterwards that he was just about to boardwipe again which would have finished me. Quite close that one.
Match 3 i played against a very synergistic and well put together GW deck piloted by a very skilled player. First game he got a decent amounts of threats out but I was beating him down slowly until he turned it around with a very well timed spirit that boosts toughness that just wiped me out. Second game his creatures outmatched me on the ground and despite me trying to bait him into a Borrowed Grace trap, he didn't fall for it and grinder out the win easily. Very well played by my opponent and was nice enough to give me pointers on my deck construction.
Lastly.... Remember I said my friend had an absurdly synergistic UW spirits/tempo deck? Yeah, he was my last match and we were both at 2-1. Game one was a beat down bonanza with both of us slipping past each other to deliver big damage early. Despite taking down a bunch of his fliers, he still outmatched me in the air and a choking restraints to destroy my faithed crusader releasing his niblis sealed the game for him - on 2 life. Game 2 swung my way after I capitalised on a the combat tricks I had played the previous game and left mana open to make him believe I had powerful instants available (i was holding land about half the time) and he attempted to play around it until he hit very low life and I alpha striked forcing through a beater who won the game with a mutation. Last game was a bit anti climatic. I got an early couple of beaters down whilst he failed to establish a board presence before turn 4 - when my removal turned on and I killed or locked down every creature he tried to play.
All in all, not a bad day. I'll have to see if I can beat my 3-1 tomorrow...
EDIT: Sorry for the poor spelling and grammar. It's suprisingly hard to post on my phone.
Stalwart Aven was massively underestimated and drew very little removal in any of my games and he was an all star. Chips away at players with no reach or flying and is after he hits renown he's suprisingly difficult to attack through without losing dudes.
Gonna echo what everyone said about Sentinel of the Eternal Watch. A creature that shrugs off burn, hits hard enough to take out 90% of things coming it way, has vigilance and an ability that can't even be shut off by tapping it off that acts as retargetable removal. Yes please. Lived the dream and cast Tragic Arrogance with it in play. High point of my day.
Llanowar Empath was A LOT better than I thought. He comes out just after I start dropping my defensive dudes and really helped me draw into what I needed and trades decently if the other player hasn't been pushing renown or pump hard enough.
Picked white, like absolutely everyone wanted to, but ended up missing out on the Topan Freeblade action and didn't draw any in my pool, but had pretty decent pulls aside from that so played midrange GW. Suprising noone Tragic Arrogance was completely insane in sealed, especially when complimented by a nice white removal suite of 2 Celestial Flare, 2 Swift Reckoning and Suppression Bonds to hold the fort and make them overextend.
Went 2-0 against a deathtouch heavy GB aggro deck, 2-0 against a WU mill deck, lost 2-1 to the eventual winner who played a sweet RG deck that overwhelmed me with multiple Pharika’s Disciples and Undercity Trolls and took 2-0 against my friend playing RW aggro.
One weird thing I noticed - in our pool of players, at least 3 people were running Sphinx’s Tutelage and attempting to grind out the game. Literally never saw this work out for them in practice, although a few of them went 2-2. Anyone try this and get any success? Seems in this format that's just a waste of time?
Sorry that's my bad,I was responding to Necarg's post. Edited my last post to make it clearer. I would definitely agree with you on the other pool.
Yeah, but we're talking about Origins Sealed. So Standard doesn't matter here.
And to answer your question I don't think there are any Donate effects in Standard at the moment. Could be wrong though and might all change with BFZ.
I'm not seeing nearly enough power in green personally to warrent it... so WB? Decent removal, enchantment synergy with Blightcaster and a flipwalker. For me Green here is just... eww. I almost never play Black but would definitely pick it over Green here.