Hey folks! I did a couple matches on Saturday for the Magic Online Theros Prerelease. I first did the draft, and then the sealed games. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to save my decks, and didn’t think ahead of time to hit “print-screen” to get a screen capture of the decks. But I’ll summarize how things went here.

Unfortunately, both my draft and my sealed ended up being Red/White Heroic, but getting it both times gave me quite a bit of experience with how the deck functions in the real world.

DRAFT:
I was actually looking to force a Red/Blue deck for the draft, but Red/White was completely open, so I dove on in. I got Flamespeaker Adept, Phalanx Leader, Favored Hoplite, and Akroan Crusader, as well as an Anax and Cymede for a total of (I thought) 5 enablers. I figured ahead of time that Flamespeaker Adept would work well with my combat tricks, since many of them had the scry 1 mechanic. I also was lucky enough to hit a pack 3 Purphoros, God of the Forge.

I was able to go 2-1 with the deck (8-player pool), losing in the second round to a Red and Green opponent who ramped into bigger threats and had a few good combat tricks of their own.

I learned that Hopeful Eidolon is incredibly important for this deck. In most drafts, a 1/1 lifelink creature for 1 is pretty useless – but in this format, this card is fantastic! Often I was looking for a turn 1 play with the red/white deck, and then hitting a turn 2 Ordeal or Dragon Mantle. If your opponent stumbles even just a little, that kind of play will make them suffer, and even if they don’t stumble it’s often going to cost your opponent 2 cards to deal with (3 if your bestow leaves behind relevant bodies). This is compounded by the weak 2-mana removal and the necessity for 2-mana combat tricks. A 1/1 lifelink creature that can either be made big early, or which triggers Heroic (and adds relevant bonuses) on turn 4, is a powerful play.

Anax and Cymede pulled some good work, but more often due to being a 3/2 vigilant first striker than through their Heroic. Gaining Trample was almost never relevant (though the +1/+1 team-wide was). If you load up Anax and Cymede with stuff, they’ll do a great job – but expect them to do it on their own rather than as a team. The First Strike and Vigilance pairs extremely well with all the Bestow cards, but their team-buff is much worse than Phalanx Leader’s. Given the type of deck you’re often gunning for with Red/White (fast army), consider targeting Phalanx Leader instead of this Legend due to the long-term bonuses.

Purphoros was useful in my deck, but never a star. I windmill slammed him so hard on the draft that I didn’t pay attention to anything else in the pack. Assuming you don’t care about his high worth (approx. $18/tix), you might be wise to pick up things like Phalanx Leader or other very powerful role-playing card. The Red/White deck functions more like a standard agro deck, so by the time you cast Purphoros, you’ll often already have exhausted most of the creatures from your hand. Additionally, you suffer a high attrition rate with red/white, so you’ll rarely make Purphoros into a creature. Over the course of the draft, Purphoros came out twice, probably shot of 8 damage (6 to one opponent, 2 to another), and I used his “+1/+0 your team” ability about 5 times (all against the same opponent when I had a single creature left). Is he a good card still? Sure. But it is actually possible to do better.

Fun note, Favored Hoplite is amazing, and Spark Jolt is fantastic as a 1 or 2-of in this deck! The scry 1 amazingly helps your Flamespeaker Adepts, filters your draws, can push through that last little bit of damage in races (yes, I did win a game this way – but there were many times I was 1 power short of taking out an enemy bomb), and triggers heroic often without actually hurting your Heroic dude. There’s far better spells out there, but don’t overlook this card! It plays reasonably well with all sides of the Red/White battle plan – even if it’s not fantastic at any of them. That versatility is valuable.


SEALED:
I picked the Red Prerelease pack and went 4-0 in the tournament. Again, I was kinda hoping to get Red/Blue, as I really want to try it out, but Red/White was just too strong to pass up. I got Phalanx and Wingstead rider, but more importantly 2x Anax and Cymede. I followed through on the same game-plan, but tightened up my deck’s curve. I had five 1cmc cards, 7 2cmc cards, and 8 3cmc cards. Most of my opponents were dead in short order. One opponent with Eberos, Lord of the Dead died with 7 cards in hand, despite hitting all their land drops and colours.

Again my most difficult matchup was red/green, as their Satyrs kept them safe from a blowout, yet powered their 4 and 5 drops. My Green/Black and White/Blue opponents were just left in the dust.


THEORIES:
After playing, I’d say this for Red/White:
- you need 3-power to kill them, and 4-toughness to survive them.
- Akroan Crusader is good, but only if you can reliably swarm. Unless your deck is all 1 and 2-drop this guy + enchantments, don’t go for more than 2 of him.
- Phalanx Leader is a bomb. Take him instead of almost anything else.
- It’s harder to draft Heroic creatures than pump spells, so take the good ones quickly, even though the good pump spells disappear early as well. At the end of the day, it’ll be better to be consistent. If you get both, you’re golden.
- Cantrip enchantments are where it’s at with Heroic, but only with Heroic creatures that give permanent effects. Wingsteed Rider is naturally evasive and gets a +1/+1 counter that works great with this, Phalanx Leader will rapid-fire buff your team with these, and Favored Hoplite can attack risk-free turn after turn with these.
- If you’re a swarm red/white deck, play out the red/white emissaries. If you’re a Voltron red/white deck, hold onto them to Bestow.

ADDITIONAL CONCEPT:
Okay, so I’ve said the 2-cmc removal sucks in this format, but that’s because it stops being effective once an enchantment sticks to a creature. In reality, that means these removal spells are more like Counterspells in this format – if you use them, you’ll only be able to use them at the exact right time (inbetween a creature, a heroic trigger, and an enchantment). As such, I’m tempted to try out a white/black or black/blue removal-heavy deck. It should be able to kill off the fast decks in a counterspell-like fashion, and then make it to the late-game to cast the big creatures.