Eldritech Moon Prerelease!

Prerelease Blog time!

I know not too many people are interested in this sort of thing but I do it as an exercise for myself mostly, and if other people are interested in checking it out, then great!

2PM Prerelease Sunday. Dragged my brother (and a very experienced friend of his) along with me for his first prerelease ever. Tried to prepare him beforehand by explaining to him how to build, giving him links to the card sets, but he mostly only skimmed the cards and assumed he would be ok. We got our card pools and he was VERY quickly overwhelmed so I had to build my own pool and then build his. 2 decent pools in under an hour wasn't too shabby I don't think.

I'll do a quick summary of his pool before I get to mine.
He opened a bunch of solid emerge creatures including 2 Wretched Gryffs and a flash crab (Drownyard Behemoth) and some emerge enablers so UG seemed like the solid choice. He also opened two Mausoleum Wanderers without much other spirit support, but a couple solid equipment so I explained to him how to combo Mausoleum Wanderer and Stitcher's Graft to dish out the beats and counter stuff if necessary. Being his first prerelease he didn't do amazingly well but took a couple games off people (including his friend who he paired up against in the second round---they drew instead of one giving the win to the other for some unknown reason so neither of them got any bonus packs lol) and he had fun so I think it was a success. His friend managed to open Thalia, Gisela, AND Bruna. I forced him to interrupt any game I'm in and call me over when he assembles Brisela. He did. It was glorious.
Onto my pool now:

Rares:
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Diregraf Colossus
Noosegraf Mob
Voldaren Pariah
Startled Awake
Declaration in Stone
Mausoleum Wanderer
Liliana, the Last Hope
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Docent of Perfection (promo)

This build was mostly pretty easy. Zombie synergy for days, plus some bonus fun with the common Meld combo and Startled Awake. The only issue I ran into in UB was my early game was extremely lacking. My lategame was essentially unbeatable if I could get there but I needed ways to shore it up. Ended up throwing in a couple more mediocre early drops instead of other stuff I wanted to throw in (like Cemetery Recruitment for even more recursion, yay!) but I think it was the right choice. Here's the deck:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/emn-prerelease-sealed-1/

Match 1 - VS GW beatdown
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And boy did he beat me down. G1 he curved out crazy well while I was still struggling to get zombies online and stick. G2 was a little closer and I managed to get Voldaren Pariah out and transformed to clear his board but then he drops Choking Restraints on her. Sigh. I drop a 2/4 zombie and prepare to start whittling away a little as his board is still empty but then SURPRISE AVACYN. Surprisingly enough enough this made me feel better, not worse as there really would have been not much coming back from any of it once she gets on the board anyway. We played a G3 for fun to see if my deck could ever really beat him, and THAT game I went off like crazy. Manage to get to Liliana's Ultimate, comboing zombies, sacrificing them to Voldaren Pariah and growing my Gavony Unhallowed. Casting a 4/4 Diregraf Colossus and then Noosegraf Mob for even MOAR ZAMBIES. Such a fun deck when it gets there.

Record: 0-1

Match 2 - VS BW removal
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And I call this deck 'removal' because I looked after the games---he had 13 pieces of pure removal I think? Murders, Choking Restraints, Boons of Emrakul, that thing that makes Zombies (Dark Salvation), you name it. Anyway G1 he kept my board clear and killed me with a Graf Rats with Lunarch Mantle attached to fly over if I ever managed to stick a guy. Also Borrowed Grace for extra beats. G2 was long and grindy. I managed to keep creatures on the board long enough to get Voldaren Pariah out and transformed to clear his board, which of course I then lost immediately again. Also did I forget to mention Gisela? Yeah she was in his deck too. Had to Drag Under her to keep her out of my hair for a bit until I could find removal. Managed to Declaration in Stone her despite the shaky manabase and eventually I landed a 4/4 Diregraf again that he couldn't use Boon of Emrakul on, and he was out of removal so I won. G3 was even crazier. Voldaren Pariah again, transform again, lose her again. Geist of the Archives did mega work for me this game, helping me dig up answers and eventually my other wincon, Startled Awake. Hit him with it once and MILLED GISELA! Whew. At that point he really didn't have too many major threats, but I couldn't kill him particularly well with all my creatures being tapped down with Sigardian Priest. Recurred Startled Awake as a creature which had to block something, so I just recurred it as a blocker for a bit. It couldn't get through a Spectral Shepherd with Spontenous Mutation on it to prevent flying beats earlier in the game, and the Sigardian Priest. Eventually he got desperate despite me having a Priest of my own and tapped one of my guys during his turn, leaving me the ability to tap his other blocker, getting the 1/1 skulk through, recasting Startled Awake and winning the game.

Record: 1-1

Third round was against one of the store co-owners and he wanted to go play Pokemon Go so we just drew. Instead I played against my brother (who I summarily crushed with the Graf Rats/Midnight Scavengers Meld combo and Docent of Perfection) and that was about it.

Final record: 1-1-1

MVPs: Voldaren Pariah, Cryptolith Fragment, Geist of the Archives, Liliana
Underwhelming: Rise From the Grave, Docent of Perfection (only because I never drew them in any games really)

Kinda disappointing I didn't get more use out of this deck because the synergy and fun level was unreal. Once again opened a bonkers pool and didn't do insanely well with it but hey, it happens. Cryptolith Fragment was amazing for a little bonus fixing/damage and the flip side is nuts. Voldaren Pariah often just kinda gets shut down after you wipe both your board and your opponent's but it's still great.

Report #2 below:
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So 7pm prerelease at a different store, just me this time.
Rares were:
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Voldaren Pariah
Liliana, the Last Hope
Avacyn's Judgment
Emrakul's Evangel
Geralf's Masterpiece
Wharf Infiltrator
Sanctifier of Souls
Hanweir Battlements (promo)

I had a BRUTAL time assembling this deck. Let's talk about the obvious first. Another Liliana, and ANOTHER Voldaren Pariah, AND I got them in the SAME PACK this time. So black seems like the obvious choice, right? Not so. My first choice was very strongly red. The sheer burn/madness cards/removal along with solid cards in the werewolves and Thermo-Alchemist for synergy made it the #1 choice. But how to choose my second colour? Green and white were definitely out, but in blue I was sitting on Geralf's Masterpiece, Wretched Gryff, and Wharf Infiltrator, a bunch of solid spells to go with Thermo Alchemist in Just the Wind, Gone Missing, Pore over the Pages, not to mention solid creatures either to beat or durdle till I got ping them out. RB or RU? I agonized over this until time in deckbuilding was called, but ultimately I went with the RB plan. The madness enabling was better in black than in blue, the curve was maybe slightly more consistent creature-wise, and not playing Liliana was super feelbad. I really think it could have gone either way with this pool though.

Deck:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/emn-prerelease-2-2/

Match 1 - VS UW...fliers? Maybe?
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I didn't see much of the guy's deck honestly. G1 he mulled to 5, did nothing for a while, played Nephalia Moondrakes and then lost, and G2 I curved out with madness/burn as my deck tends to do and crushed him. He played Spectral Shepherd at one point which was the only significant threat to me all game which I promptly removed as soon as he tapped his blue mana. Think he had a Bruna in there somewhere.

Record: 1-0

Match 2 - VS RW aggro
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G1 again this dude mulled hard (though we both went to 6 to start) so I was ahead from the start, then Voldaren Pariahed him (and it STUCK this time!). Sacced my own Accursed Witch for value too. G2 I think I played something like 6 different spells the entire game. It was glorious. Thermo Alchemist T2 blanked his board a fair amount, then Cryptolith Fragment T3 to burn him down further than myself. Didn't play anything else other than a non-madnessed Avacyn's Judgment to the face until T7 when I used Spreading Flames to wipe his board (after letting him hit me down to 10 to flip the Fragment on my next turn). Then, just in case he could crawl back with anything, Shreds of Sanity to get Avacyn's Judgment and Spreading Flames back, discarding Incorrigible Youths to madness. Oh, and did I mention every time I cast a burn/removal spell I can untap Thermo-Alchemist for even more burn/ping? Deck felt reeeal good.

Record: 2-0

Final match---it was getting late and the prize differential for 2-0-1 vs 3-0 wasn't huge so we split. A good thing too, I dunno if even my aggro shenanigans could have beaten this guy's deck. It was basically a constructed deck. Bygone Bishop, Tireless Tracker, Thalia, Gisela, and something else I forgot. Basically would have had to burn him out super quick or lose in the mid-late game.

Final record: 2-0-1

Stuff I learned (from watching other people's matches as well):
Emerge is going to be a HOUSE in this format. Very strong creatures, and saccing stuff you don't need anymore or emerge enablers is real easy. Thermo-Alchemist is likely broken. If I could pull the shenanigans I did in sealed, in draft it's going to be disgusting when you can actually pick up a couple of them. He's at COMMON. Cryptolith Fragment is also an extremely good card. That could be confirmation bias for this one specifically but I found it did exactly what I needed it to---was half-decent fixing early and a little extra damage, and flipping it is all but game over for your opponent. Didn't see much of Werewolves though I hear they're solid, GW is still the deck type to beat most likely (though UR will be very close if not overtaking it) and vampires (and spirits?) are nonexistent. ZOmbies are somewhere in between.

So overall, another pretty successful couple prereleases. 2x Liliana is about as good as I could hope for.
Haven't opened 4 of my prize packs either so here I go!!!

Prize pack pulls:
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Thalia's Lancers
Heron's Grace Champion
Gisa and Geralf
Providence
Sigarda's Aid
Selfless Spirit
Voldaren Pariah

As always comments/questions are welcome. Thanks for reading!

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