Midnight pr i went 2-2. Went Golgari and got no help from my packs. Pulled 2 Vindicator and no cards to support them. Was forced to play some janky RG deck. Everyone was amused with how bad my card pool was.
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
Yeah, in the third match I had to trade Equinauts for one, and they had an answer for every possible double-block scenario we concocted in order to deal with the other. It was at the point where our only out was to rip a Status // Statue for our Hitchclaw Recluse, but instead we drew four lands in a row lol.
And I guess it's worth reiterating that we did still have a good time. I agree that overall the set is fun, and there are a lot of great card interactions that were enjoyable to see. Mentoring my partner's creatures, for instance, was something that not a lot of people expected.
I just thought that the situation we encountered was a little silly.
Did the 2HG today with a friend. I had planned on picking Dimir because U/B is my jam, Store said that they were out of Dimir. Sucks, but whatever. At least I could count on Nightveil Predator, my single most feared card in the set due to the almost universal inability to interact with it in any way, being pretty rare. So I picked Selesnya and my friend picked Golgari, with the plan on one deck going big and wide and the other supporting with strong removal and situational answers.
Literally eight seconds after we finished cracking all six packs, the store announced that they were mistaken, and they did have Dimir decks for people who preregistered, of which I was one. So that felt kinda crappy, but again, no one else had Dimir either so I felt like I had less to worry about.
We open a solid pool and build to plan, with two strong, consistent decks.
Round one, we were in a very strong position to win when we go to time and draw. We get paired down for round two.
Round two I have to mull three times down to five, but we actually pull out of the hole and are in a good position when one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and then the game is over.
Round three, we're ahead and not doing too bad. Then one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and the game is basically over, it just takes another seven turns of us not interacting with them in a meaningful way.
Now we're 0-2-1 going into round 4. So we drop and go home.
Overall we had fun, and I feel like our decks were very strong (we had four Dead Weight and 4 Prey Upon in our pool. We couldn't even run all of them). But we lost to double Nightveil Predator twice in a row, in a room where not a single person opened a Dimir seeded pack.
And all day that was the only card that felt bad to play against. I think in a Limited environment, at uncommon, Nightveil Predator is an absolutely toxic card. And I feared that would be the case going in, and I wasn't really surprised to find out it was true.
Honestly, I think that the seeded packs actually exacerbated the potential for dead pools. As I mentioned, I picked Selesnya, and I got like one playable in my seeded pack. My promo was a total whiff. I pulled Knight of Autumn, Cavalier, and Trostani in my regular packs (the latter of which I unfortunately did not draw even once after a combined total of more than thirty turns, which was really disappointing). The guaranteed locket is also essentially just reducing the pack by one card. They allowed too many bad cards into those seeded packs, and because the variance on them is so much lower than regular packs, some people just got boned.
And I guess it's worth reiterating that we did still have a good time. I agree that overall the set is fun, and there are a lot of great card interactions that were enjoyable to see. Mentoring my partner's creatures, for instance, was something that not a lot of people expected.
I just thought that the situation we encountered was a little silly.
Literally eight seconds after we finished cracking all six packs, the store announced that they were mistaken, and they did have Dimir decks for people who preregistered, of which I was one. So that felt kinda crappy, but again, no one else had Dimir either so I felt like I had less to worry about.
We open a solid pool and build to plan, with two strong, consistent decks.
Round one, we were in a very strong position to win when we go to time and draw. We get paired down for round two.
Round two I have to mull three times down to five, but we actually pull out of the hole and are in a good position when one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and then the game is over.
Round three, we're ahead and not doing too bad. Then one of our opponents drops double Nightveil Predator and the game is basically over, it just takes another seven turns of us not interacting with them in a meaningful way.
Now we're 0-2-1 going into round 4. So we drop and go home.
Overall we had fun, and I feel like our decks were very strong (we had four Dead Weight and 4 Prey Upon in our pool. We couldn't even run all of them). But we lost to double Nightveil Predator twice in a row, in a room where not a single person opened a Dimir seeded pack.
And all day that was the only card that felt bad to play against. I think in a Limited environment, at uncommon, Nightveil Predator is an absolutely toxic card. And I feared that would be the case going in, and I wasn't really surprised to find out it was true.