EPTSo Spring of Magic came and went, Summer was pure hell and I didn't get to play much at all, missed Nationals because of surgery, but now with the release of a new set comes new beginnings, a new Standard and maybe a new Modern deck or two for the first time.
Solo Prerelease, Saturday Evening
I was a little worried the store wouldn't have enough people to run this event considering they sold out their midnight Prerelase the night before with the vast majority taking Golgari packs, but I was pleasantly surprised to see 16 total showed up. I chose Golgari myself as well, hoping to hit the Ass Trophy lottery, but givne the early release on MTGA and MTGO and having played through some early sealed pools, I was kind of regretting my decision because it seems Golgari kinda sucks. My pool did not disappoint, however (aside from the fact that I somehow managed to open 5 Pause for Reflections out of 6 packs. That was pretty silly.):
The pool:
Rares:
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Izoni, Thousand-Eyed (promo)
Dream Eater
Deafening Clarion
Venerated Loxodon
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Dawn of Hope
Dream Eater
Deafening Clarion
Venerated Loxodon
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Dawn of Hope
At first glance I was super happy to have opened so many solid cards and support in the Guild pack as well as a mega bomb in Dream Eater, but upon building the deck I noticed two problems: one, my curve was awful. No solid bodies early on and extremely top heavy. I would get absolutely run over by any aggressive deck at all. Number two, if I wanted to play a bunch of my support cards and bombs, I had double-colour costs in 3 colours (triple colour if you count Niv, but Izzet was out) which made the manabase horrendous. I build a straight up Sultai 3 color deck with a godawful manabase so I could play all my double coloured cards in those 3 colours, then realized with 5 minutes of deckbuilding left that it would be an awful idea. I could either cut my blue splash in Dream Eater and some of the removal, put in some extremely mediocre filler for the early game and call it a day, or switch and run Dimir instead.
And so I did.
And it was the right choice.
Sultai Secrets
Match 1 vs Izzet Aggro
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This guy's deck was the perfect example of what an amazing Izzet deck is capable of. Despite Dimir being incredibly strong even with some filler and mediocre playables, I'm pretty sure the nuts Izzet deck is better than any other in the format. Early Thought Erasure from me reveals a hand full of spells and Niv-Mizzet. Oh joy. Managed to get the guy to discard Niv from hand but then he had Wee Dragonauts and two of the UURR crackling drakes, and like 3-4 card draw spells with an early Electromancer out. So he just ground me way down with card advantage and chipped away in the air when he could, then swung in for a big turn with double Sonic Assault. I didn't stand a chance. Both games went exactly the same way essentially, with Game 2 having him resolve Niv instead and me killing him immediately on the next turn.
Record 0-1
Record 0-1
Match 2 vs Sultai Mirror
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This guy was playing a very similar deck to mine, except his splash was Vraska. Game 1 I mulled to 6 on the play. Lovely. He dropped Disinformation Campaign so I thought I was screwed. (I will note here I had played in an online prerelease on MTGO using a Dimir deck running Disinformation Campaign and that card is busted beyond belief. I ended up winning 7 matches without losing a game, then lost my next two for a 7-2 finish. But I digress.) I used Thought Erasure to see what he had going on then he bounced a creature of mine with a surveil spell, causing his own Campaign to go to his hand---so I could force him to discard it! I then was able to grind him out with my own fliers/surveil and removal to get rid of any threats he drew including Etrata.Game 2 was similar in that I had to mull to 6 again, but I had him down to top decks and won the turn before he drew his Vraska. I think ultimately this one came down to me drawing better than him across both games, but considering I was at 6 I think that's somewhat even.
Record 1-1
Record 1-1
Match 3 vs Dimir
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Match 3 I nearly shat myself because I had to go up against the nuts Dimir deck. I saw this dude building near me, he had two Nightveil Spectres (which blank all my removal), Mission Briefing, and whole bunch of other stuff.
This match though...this was the greatest set of games I have had in limited in a very long time. I'll do my best to describe the intensity of the back-and-forth but words don't quite do it justice. Also certainly helps that this guy was a talker, and a jovial one at that. Just a pure pleasure of a match, through and through.
Game 1 we both mulled to 6. We each dropped threats and countered/removed them as they showed up until eventually we both had empty boards, maybe 10-12 cards in our libraries and we were top decking. Eventually I won after returning Dream Eater to my library after it was in the graveyard with Devious coverup.
Game 2 started similarly to game 1. He dropped his hexproof flier, I dropped plaguecrafter, forcing him to sac it.
He dropped Lazav and a guildmage. I started to beat down early thank to a couple 3 power dudes and Passwall adept.
He was forced to tap down my 3 power guys with his guildmage until he stole my Passwall with Connive.
I bounced it back to my hand and continued to beat down. He drew both spybugs and Disinformation campaign, making them huge but I had already beaten him down to 5 life so he couldn't do much attacking. He turned Lazav into a Watcher in the Mist and knowing I'd have trouble blocking both the spybugs and a 3/4 flier I dead Weighted Lazav while he couldn't get hexproof from the nightveil predator in the graveyard. I managed to get through another 3 unblockable damage with my Passwall but he topdecked the -3/-0 combat trick then killed the passwall. Eventually we were counting cards in our libraries and were at a stalemate of sorts. He was able to start attacking me little by little but his library held 5 cards to my 7. I was hoping to win by decking him at that point because he sacrificed a huge spybug with Severed Strands to gain life and kill one of my guys. His flying 1/2 lazav was chipping in and he was keeping one of my guys tapped with his guildmage until i was able to finally kill it. Eventually he was down to two cards and had a potentially lethal attack in the air next turn I topdecked Nightveil Sprite to block at 1 life, and he Notion Rained himself to try to draw for an answer, then Notion Rained again to kill himself when he saw he had nothing left but lands.
Absolutely epic series, coming down to the wire both games.
Final Record: 2-1-0
This match though...this was the greatest set of games I have had in limited in a very long time. I'll do my best to describe the intensity of the back-and-forth but words don't quite do it justice. Also certainly helps that this guy was a talker, and a jovial one at that. Just a pure pleasure of a match, through and through.
Game 1 we both mulled to 6. We each dropped threats and countered/removed them as they showed up until eventually we both had empty boards, maybe 10-12 cards in our libraries and we were top decking. Eventually I won after returning Dream Eater to my library after it was in the graveyard with Devious coverup.
Game 2 started similarly to game 1. He dropped his hexproof flier, I dropped plaguecrafter, forcing him to sac it.
He dropped Lazav and a guildmage. I started to beat down early thank to a couple 3 power dudes and Passwall adept.
He was forced to tap down my 3 power guys with his guildmage until he stole my Passwall with Connive.
I bounced it back to my hand and continued to beat down. He drew both spybugs and Disinformation campaign, making them huge but I had already beaten him down to 5 life so he couldn't do much attacking. He turned Lazav into a Watcher in the Mist and knowing I'd have trouble blocking both the spybugs and a 3/4 flier I dead Weighted Lazav while he couldn't get hexproof from the nightveil predator in the graveyard. I managed to get through another 3 unblockable damage with my Passwall but he topdecked the -3/-0 combat trick then killed the passwall. Eventually we were counting cards in our libraries and were at a stalemate of sorts. He was able to start attacking me little by little but his library held 5 cards to my 7. I was hoping to win by decking him at that point because he sacrificed a huge spybug with Severed Strands to gain life and kill one of my guys. His flying 1/2 lazav was chipping in and he was keeping one of my guys tapped with his guildmage until i was able to finally kill it. Eventually he was down to two cards and had a potentially lethal attack in the air next turn I topdecked Nightveil Sprite to block at 1 life, and he Notion Rained himself to try to draw for an answer, then Notion Rained again to kill himself when he saw he had nothing left but lands.
Absolutely epic series, coming down to the wire both games.
Final Record: 2-1-0
Overall a really fun prerelease, didn't get to see a huge representative of the type of decks out there, but there was another one to come.
Prize Pack Pulls:
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Legion Warboss
Emmara, Soul of the Accord
Drowned Secrets
Emmara, Soul of the Accord
Drowned Secrets
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Two-Headed Giant, Sunday Afternoon
My buddy picked Golgari for the Ass lottery and I picked Dimir, cause, well, Dimir. I opened a bunch of busted controlly cards and his Golgari was balls so he went Selesnya instead to shore up our boards while I slowly drained them/milled them out with Whispering Snitch and Disinformation Campaign, which are even MORE busted in 2HG because they affect both players.
Rares:
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Lazav, the Multifarious (promo)
Quasiduplicate
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Nullhide Ferox
Citywide Bust
Knight of Autumn
Quasiduplicate
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Nullhide Ferox
Citywide Bust
Knight of Autumn
So you can probably see why he went Selesnya. I actually didn't end up running Quasiduplicate because I had SO MUCH removal and tempo between our two pools I didn't have good enough creatures to copy. He'd convoke out the big dudes and smash while I made sure to counter any answers or empty their hands, and it worked pretty nicely.
Some short summaries of the games:
Round 1 vs Dimir and Boros
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We play these dudes all the time. Real nice, friendly people. Boros guy flooded mainly but we were down to single digit life before we stabilized and forced them into topdecking. Unfortunately we both took a long time to play, and despite us being able to take them down to something like 3 life over two turns with a combination of Bounty of Might and Flourish, time was called, it ended up being a draw. We needed like 30 more seconds for that win. Oh well.
Record: 0-0-1
Record: 0-0-1
Round 2 vs Sultai and Boros
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I was getting real antsy becasue these two were taking quite a long time (and speaking to each other in Russian so we couldn't understand them haha).They played some stuff but we basically always had the answer despite a couple of scary points including a desperation double pump of a flyer to try to get in for 9 damage at once.
Boros player dropped Aurelia----we had debated about using Crushing Canopy to kill a Skynight Legionnaire and luckily my buddy disagreed with me. We got to our stabilization point much earlier---they were both empty handed basically but taking 5-7 minutes for each turn when there were few choices to be made. Eventually I spoke up, and kinda felt like a jerk moving them along but slow play is slow play, even if you're newer at the game. We won pretty handily.
Record: 1-0-1
Boros player dropped Aurelia----we had debated about using Crushing Canopy to kill a Skynight Legionnaire and luckily my buddy disagreed with me. We got to our stabilization point much earlier---they were both empty handed basically but taking 5-7 minutes for each turn when there were few choices to be made. Eventually I spoke up, and kinda felt like a jerk moving them along but slow play is slow play, even if you're newer at the game. We won pretty handily.
Record: 1-0-1
Round 3 vs---you guessed it---Dimir and Boros
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3 out of 4 of us got mana screwed, but my Dimir opponent worst of all. I eventually surveilled into what I needed before he did and again we basically crushed them after I looped Disinformation 2-3 times.
Final Record: 2-0-1
Final Record: 2-0-1
Prize Pack Pulls:
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Chance for Glory
Pelt Collector
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Pelt Collector
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Stuff I learned: I had a great time over this prerelease, but I think I much prefer random promo rares (and one extra) to this 'guild pack' business. If one guild is much stronger than the rest (I'm looking at you Dimir) or there is a particular chase pull then tons of decks go unrepresented and the variety in potential games suffers. And while in this case the Dimir mirrors are all very intense and fun, I could see anyone getting sick of them pretty quickly. The reason Dimir is so strong here I think is because of the Surveil mechanic being so heavily represented. The idea that WotC came up with I assume was for Surveil to be useful for the Golgari and Izzet graveyard mechanics as well, but when DImir has the best commons AND some of the best uncommons AND the best Surveil payoffs in the set, there's likely to be a decent imbalance when you get a pack that's full of ONLY those things. Anyway, the format looks like a good one, been drafting a little on Arena and it seems a little more equalized (green probably still worst colour though).
As always, comments/questions are more than welcome, and in fact encouraged. Any mistakes in my building or advice is always up for discussion. If there's anything anyone reading this does not understand I'd also be more than happy to explain some of the terminology or choices I made.
