Rivals of Ixalan Prerelease!

Elenda, the Dusk Rose (promo)
Vrask'a Contempt
Legion's Landing
Profane Procession
Blood Sun
Crafty Cutpurse
Silent Gravestone

Game 1I mulled to 6 on the play and somehow drew 5 Plains. Stuck on white mana the entire game I was quickly run over by fliers and things. Game 2 was slightly more of a game but just barely. After siding out a Plains for another Swamp (isn't confirmation bias wonderful?) I drew my colours, and thens ome. 5-6 lands in a row after turn 4, I believe. He very slowly gained incremental advantages against be, hitting me with 1-2 creatures at a time and while I'd eventually draw removal and attempt to stabilize he'd just draw shit tons of cards and then dropped the blue Elder Dinosaur. I promptly removed it but him drawing a card from it and having 5-6 more creatures and a hand of 6 cards meant I was dead here too.
Record 0-1

Ended up paired against my brother! We joked since we both lost our first match that the game store was conspiring against us so that we'd have to stay the full 3 rounds for potential prizing this way instead of going home early and going to sleep if we both went 0-2. He was still figuring things out as he hadn't really played since before 2014 but I think he did an ok job building his deck all things considered. Probably had a better curve than mine anyway. We had played a practice game before the matches started which ended with me dropping Profane Procession and exiling any creature he dared playing. Game 1 He kept a really greedy hand and never drew the lands he needed. Game 2 My creatures and answers matched up better and he lost fairly quickly. Spent some time after the match talking about which hands he should be keeping and which ones he shouldn't and the fact that his playing 16 lands wasn't quite enough. Was kind of frustrating because he blamed every loss on his 'always having bad card luck,' whatever that means. I don't know, I'm of the opinion that the only way to really play card games without drowning in an ocean of salt to variance is to recognize that sometimes things are beyond your control, but to blame yourself in many situations regardless because often there are things you can do to mitigate that variance. Also helps you improve if you're always looking at what you could have done better rather than blaming outside influences. There was no getting through to him though so we moved on.
Record 1-1

Offered the split as per usual, and my opponent accepted. Two packs for each of us, and then we played for fun. Game 1 I find he's playing straight Sultai colors and draws all three of his colours over the first three turns. Meanwhile, in Wave-deck-land, I drew only white mana AGAIN, and lost with 4 black cards in my hand after getting to 5 mana AGAIN. EVen after siding out one of those plains---I have no idea how the hell that happens but it did. Was pretty funny honestly. Game 2 I was slightly tilted so I kept a hand I probably shouldn't have ---one lander with Skittering Heartstopper on the play and a few 2 drops. I think because it was late and my brain was going BLACK MANA I just went for it. I was rewarded for my greed because I curved out perfectly and went on to win. At one point he hit 5 mana, is about to play a card and goes "wait, no, can't play that.' I then looked to his graveyard at the Thrashing Brontodon I had removed a couple turns before and asked 'Wait, then how did you play that then?' TUrns out he only had one green mana at that point and the Brontodon cost 1GG. Neither of us realized it at the time and it didn't seem to affect the outcome much but yeah....it was late. Game 3 I had both Legion's Landing and Profane Procession in hand but was afraid to have them removed by the Brontodon so i didn't play the Procession---turns out it didn't matter I just won by swinging with things.
Final Record: 2-1-0

Slaughter the Strong
Kumena's Awakening
Paladin of Atonement
Tendershoot Dryad

Brass's Bounty
Slaughter the Strong (Foil)
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
Storm the Vault
Dire Fleet Daredevil
Dead Man's Chest
Herald of Secret Streams

I'm going to try to keep this one relatively short. We played creatures and stuff, thy played creatures and stuff. Then they powered out a Carnage Tyrant on turn 5. Then they tossed a Journey To Eternity on it. So we're forced to eat huge hits to this unkillable 8/7 (they buffed it) trampler until my friend realizes we have Ixalan's binding and we can exile the enchantment! Sweet! We eventually acquiesce to a 3-for-1 so we can removed the Carnage Tyrant by blocking it, all the while the Merfolk player is hitting us in the air and with unblockable merfolk and drawing cards. At one point my friend holds up Divine Verdict to remove a flier despite a resolved Shaper's Sanctuary. We try to kill the 3/4 flier, he draws a card before the spell resolves, draws a bounce spell to bounce his own creature and draw another card, then replay it. Disgusting. Hey, maybe we can try to rebuild our board after having it essentially wiped to Carnage Tyra---nope, Ghalta. We try to muster up enough blockers to take that out but the Merfolk guy has a hand of 8 cards and the UG mythic merfolk down by now, all the while my friend is saying 'No, don't worry we just gotta stall and try to win.' Ugh. We probably did have a small chance if we drew into Slaughter the Strong but it never came up. We just never stood a chance against them. We then found out after losing that the Merfolk deck had BOTH merfolk mythics and the uncommon UG merfolk. The dinosaur deck wasn't content with Ghalta and Carnage Tyrant, they also had two copies of Keyword Soup: The Card that we never saw---Zetalpa, Primal Dawn. Just absolutely ridiculous.
Record: 0-1

We played some guys we end up usually playing. Think they crushed us during OGW and we beat them last during...Ixalan? AKH? I don't remember. Anyway they lost their first game because they ended up a little mana screwed and fell behind. It's ok, we said, you can beat us. And boy did they. We're playing creatures, attacking, blocking, trying to be agressi---NOPE, MOTHERFUCKING GHALTA. And this one was a wombo combo: they waited until they had Otepec Huntmaster down from the turn before. They then dropped Ghalta and buffed it with Squire's Devotion to make a 13/13 trampling lifelinker. We muster up enough blocks to kill it, only for them to sacrifice their Aztocan Seer, replay Ghalta and haste it out again next turn. Just super demoralizing to lose to the exact same card to matches in a row. Our decks were just so BAD ugh.
Record: 0-2

Blood Sun