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Just as a reminder, prereleases are a chance to play with cards from the new set a couple weeks before they officially release. The tournament is Sealed format, meaning you get 6 packs of Magic and build the best 40-card deck you can out of what you open and whatever basic lands you need. Sealed is my favorite format for tournaments - success in Constructed formats (where you bring your own deck) is strongly influenced by how much money you spent on your cards, while Draft really rewards expertise (which I don't have) and you have to pay each time (since the format is based around drafting cards from packs you just bought). The drawback to Sealed is that the cards you open put you in the category of poor, mediocre, good, and awesome(!), with play skill at most boosting you one category. So on average you will open mediocre cards and 1-2 people will open awesome(!) and win. I've seen some people placing with only good cards and awesome(!) skill, and having a feel for what cards are good in a Limited environment will be rewarded, but people who win are folks who opened "bombs" (or a lot of creature removal).
Dark Ascension Sealed is 3 Dark Ascension packs and 3 Innistrad packs. Card pool – good red and black removal. Cards of note – Geist of Saint Traft, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Reaper from the Abyss. Not enough blue/white to support Geist, so went B/R. Jonah (Kid next to me) opened Snapcaster, his Dad across from me opened Liliana. I ran the following deck:
8 swamp 7 mountain 1 island (flashback on Reap the Seagraf) 1 evolving wilds 1 Stensia Bloodhall 1 Geistflame 2 Forge Devil 1 Fires of Undeath 1 Hanweir Watchkeep 1 Kessig Wolf 1 Pyreheart wolf 1 Afflicted Deserter 1 Tormented Pariah 1 Scourge of Geier Reach 1 Dead Weight 1 Tragic Slip 2 Walking Corpse 2 Reap the Seagraf 1 Falkenrath Torturer 1 Markov patrician 1 Sightless Ghoul 2 Death’s Caress 1 Reaper from the Abyss 1 Falkenrath Aristocrat |
Round 0 – playtested against someone's B/G build. I went 2-0, feeling good about my deck at this point. That guy stayed until the end of tournament. Afterwards, I played EDH with Sterling; Sterling lent me his altered Skithyryx for my commander for my Skithryx deck, he played Grimgrin. I ddin’t have enough threats to stop his commander and lost pretty badly.. Played EDH with Jonah and Sterling. I Sorin’d Sterling to set him to 10, then Exsanguinated for 17, then infect’d out Jonah.
Round 1 – played David Price, nice guy with U/W flyers. Swept me 2-0, I was toast both games. He played big enchantments on medium-sized creatures to push through, he had good token generation, and the skaab creatures are huge. Not even Falkenrath aristocrat could get through, because of those enchanted flyers.. Played a couple games afterwards, swept him 2-0 with Falkenrath aristocrat. He got lucky with his draws the first 2 games and unlucky the second two; not sure I could have beat him even with him getting average draws, but I felt better about my deck after my unofficial wins. I couldn’t get enough swamps for my hand in those four games, so I permanently swapped out -1 mountain for +1 swamp in my decklist.
Round 2 – played Rory, a young alter artist, with G/W humans. I crushed him first game because he drew no green - it took a long time though, and he’s a slow player. 2nd game he gets mentor of the meek and I have no removal – he draws at least 7 cards before I can kill that creature. Despite his huge army, he is reluctant to attack. Falkenrath aristocrat screws up the combat math for him, and his loyal cathar and elder cathar make some bad choices for me. I decide to run out the timer (he’s still playing slowly himself). We go to extra turns, on my final turn I had a chance to kill him (making my score 2-0), but I decide to play it safe and hold back to block. My gaming group from MN had a phrase – “Don’t be stupid” Surprisingly, it’s really good advice – why chance losing when you’ll win playing carefully? I win 1-0-1
Round 3 – played Georgina, who was playing her first pre-release. Apparently she plays EDH with some of the other guys there, and it showed in her deck construction. She was at 6 lands (4 plains, 2 forest) and still couldn’t play anything in her hand. 7th land was a forest, she played Kindercatch. I swept her 2-0. We played EDH after that, Skithyryx vs. Numot. I played Blightsteel Colossus, said “That will be game, unless you’ve got a mind control…” She had the mind control. I played a steel hellkite, and said “This should save my rear, unless you’ve got another mind control…” She had the 2nd mind control. I tried to burn her out with Exsanguinate, but it wasn’t enough. Definitely a better EDH player than Sealed - if you only play EDH, it may not be obvious just how unlikely it is to cast a 6-7 mana creature.
Round 4 – played a young guy with U/B semi-mill. He played a Claustrophobia on my Falkenrath, so I burned him out with Stensia Hall, but it took a long time. He had a gargoyle, which he foolishly (IMHO) sent on the attack and I killed with my Aristocrat, so I sided out Scourge of Geier Reach for Ancient Grudge for more artifact kill. 2nd round he put Claustrophobia on something else and Falkenrath went in for the win. Again I win 2-0. We played another round afterward for fun and his deck performed much better, so I was a little lucky to win when it counted. Both of these young guys (see round 2), I think, could have benefited from more aggressive play. Maybe it takes experience to know when to go for the jugular.
Round 5 – played Jonah who went B/R. I took out Grudge for Ghoulcaller’s chant. Our decks were almost identical, but he didn’t have Falkenrath aristocrat, so I won 2-0. Our 2nd round, I had to mulligan to 5, first hand had one land, second hand had cheap spells but only stensia bloodhall as land. Fortunately for me, Jonah stalled out as well on 3 lands, and had to discard, so by turn 5 we were even. Each of our plays was identical, from swamp, wilds for mountain, top a land, then symmetrically casting 3cmc creatures and geistflaming the others. Jonah was a little too cocky, unlike the other kids he might have finished stronger if he’d played more carefully.
Finished in 5th place, won 2 packs (I think I was lowest rank to win anything). My opponent’s win percentage was not the very good, but my game-win % was the best except for the undefeated guy, since I didn’t lose any games after the first round.
My good cards from the DKA prizes were Grim Backwoods, Ravenous Demon, Thtraben Doomsayer. Nothing exciting, maybe Sorin will be in my box!
All I can say is that opening 3 mythics in 6 packs is ridiculous, and Falkenrath is crazy good. My werewolves were sacked to Falkenrath more often than they transformed. Morbid demon is always good, and cheap creatures plus cheap removal is the deck I always want to build at prereleases but never really have the deck for.