Hey folks! Here's my pull from the Prerelease today. I felt really unable to cope with the competition, as my pulls didn't lead me towards much of a deck. Still, I put together something. Here's my pool:



And here's my deck:



At the end of the day, I only got 2 wins to 3 losses. The Green/White deck won very quickly when it worked, and Setessan Oathsworn was fantastic with all the Bestow and aura's I had, but too often I was quickly outclassed or my opponents had too much removal that pushed through my critters. Any suggestions on how I could have made a better deck?

I don't think shredding winds is MDable in the format, I'd rather run nyxborn wolf. Bestow is pretty bonkers.

I won a small prelelease.

My deck was absurd.I probably misbuilded it(On retrospect, the uncommon lyre equipment was probably better than a half off color returned phalanx,for example),


EDIT didn't realize that I was playing so many noncreature spells

I had an ok UG deck that was pretty much based around prophet of kruphix, asstons of card draw with 2 sedge scorpions to hopefully draw it out. Unfortunately I got 0 voyage's ends and 0 griptides, so i had to use 2 sudden storms (amazing btw) to stall with, and if i landed the prophet i won every game...unfortunately with basically only a time to feed for removal, that only led me to a 2-2 record, good enough for 8th and 2 packs.

My friend that I went with got 2nd with a nuts RG deck (gorgons head + promo dragon = silly, and he also had two asps and quite a bit of removal), he only lost in the last round to a guy that had a nuts UB god deck. The luckster opened TWO Brimaz's in his prize pack though >_>.

I had a horrible migraine and had drop halfway through round one.

My pull was kinda lackluster but I think I built a pretty solid bant heroic/bestow/fliers deck.



And the rest of my pull:

I didn't bother going, because this set looks rather miserable and I hate Sealed anyway.

I had a pretty solid pool but nothing spectacular. I actually tried to switch from White (my Son changed his mind and wanted to go White), but apparently BLUE filled up weeks early. He decided not to switch on site from Red. Probably good for me as my Pool was a bit better.

He tried to make a Naya aggro deck but in testing it flopped so in the last 5 minutes I looked at his stuff and made him go Izzet. He went 2-2.

BNG Sealed Pool


I eliminated black and green pretty quickly although their were some playables. There was actually a fair amount of black removal... I sorta wonder if BW was an option. The first funny thing was 5 unplayable uncommon gold cards (all are G or B).

The next thing I noticed was the super fast RW deck:

I actually first made this with 2 Snarecasters instead of the 2 top end guys.... but more on that later.

But of course Blue was too strong to ignore in - despite the fact that all my card draw made Spirit of the Labryinth bad.

UW Flying Beats:

There were a couple of interesting choices:
1) Dropping the promo silent sentinel. I just thought that it was worse than Hundred-Handed One, Ornitharch and Horizon Scholar at all times.

2) I also chose to play Divination over the enabling card drawers - Fate Foretold and Stratus Walk. Less confident of this decision but I had a big hole at CMC3, and really only 4 heroic guys (and Chorus of the Tides is just barely heroic).

On to the games (in which I will highlight some interesting BNG cards)...

Match 1/Game 1 I got blown out by T3 Herald of Torment, T4 Forlorn Psuedamma. I have exactly 1 (affordable) answer to the former in Revoke Existence and no answer to the latter. I panicked and boarded in ALL the Red for the Blue -- plus Guardians of Mellitus to block Pseuddamma. In retrospect, my deck underperformed in G1 (mull to 6 in both games actually). The Red did better but didn't have the reach because I never suited up my T1 sunchaser, relying on tricks to keep his board clear. I also misplayed 2-for-1ing myself by playing a trick to trade with a cyclops (miscounted my toughness).
So on to the losers bracket.

Match 2 - nothing much to say. Guy was playing BWR (Mogis and Heliod) and never did anything.

Matches 3 and 4 were both good. In both I won games 1 and 3 and lost 2 because of the complete lack of removal.... So 3-1 and top of the losers bracket (really questioning my match 1 sideboard now)

Match 3 was against GRW - in the game I lost he actually played Oracle of Bones to which I did NOT tribute, allowing him to play Hunter's Prowess and coming at me with an 10/10 (Fanatic of Zenagos with 3 +1/+1 counter) and a 5/5 first strike trampler Anax and Cymede. I chumpblocked with Hundred-Handed One Took 10 and he drew 5 cards. Actually I don't think the details there are right... but the outcome was. I even came back for a spell by putting Ardor and Valor on Scholar for a 14 point life swing, but wasn't really going to overcome that kind of card advantage.

Match 4 I avenged my Son's match 3 loss vs. a GW deck with some removal and Ghostblade Eidolon. It turns out that 5/5 double strikers are hard to deal with! I lost game 2 to that but disassembled voltron with voyage's end game 3. Game 3 shouldn't have even been close thanks to T2 Cat T3 Ordeal T4 gain 2 life / 2nd ordeal of Thassa, swing with my 5/5 draw 4 cards.

Mortal's Ardor was probably the underdog all-star - giving counters to mini-wingsteeds, gaining life, protecting from 3 damage removal. I had Ornitharch in my hand once but won before I could play it. Mostly the Theros cards had much higher power. The little white guys were OK.

Tribute is very annoying to play against (except for no-brainer snake), which I guess means it works.

I mixed my cards together so I don't have my decks, but I went 2-2 in the morning pre-release and 3-1 in the afternoon.

I picked green in the morning and got nothing of worth in the prerelease pack, much to my dismay. Nor did I get any decent green common (the reach bestow lady, that GG 3/2, nessian asp, etc.) in my other packs. I ultimately lost to the guy who won (storm breath, polis crusher, burn, etc.) and misplayed in my final matchup by forgetting I could flash in a horizon chimera.

The afternoon I picked red and got a better pool, but dropped match 1 to another misplay (tapping the wrong mana for one thing so I didn't have a mountain open to spark jolt my staunch-hearted warrior to 2-for-1 my opponent; cost me the game). I went on to not drop a single game afterward, but you know how it is, losing match 1 to misplay blows, on top of how much losing match 1 blows anyway. I got 5th, didn't pull anything good, but traded for Xenagod and a Xenagos and will probably be playing GR Monsters for the next couple of months.

The set looks more fun than Theros. Not sure how draft will look, but my guess would be spark jolt is a lot better now, and GW heroic can keep up with WU heroic but have a better end game.

Went to the bar afterward to chaos draft. Packs were: Mirage, Zendikar, Modern Masters, Darksteel, Innistrad, M14, Dark Ascension, and New Phyrexia, with multiples of Zendikar and MMA packs. Drafted a fun, grindy Golgari deck, got an Aether Vial in my packs, and, you know, good beer and whiskey and stuff. But then I fled home because all the Broncos and Seahawks fans were touristying up Manhattan by trying to DJ with barstools, clapping at everything, and purposefully running into people (me) to see if they (I) would start a fight. Meh.

My pool was pretty terrible.
And I was an idiot and decided to go 3 color.
Lost first and third match by virtue of crap lands.
Had an epiphany where I realized I didn't need to be in 3 colors.
Completely re-did my deck and won match 4 easily.
Then again, the guy was also 1-2 at that point, so he probably wasn't too spectacular either.

RB Temple was the best money card out of my pool (which tells you a lot about how worthless the lot was).
Got 2 packs for going 2-2, which had a Karametra.
Overall quite the disappointing prerelease for me.

Well the BNG cards are not at all.. inspiring. However, I do think it will jazz up draft a bit. Bx control looks super annoying what with all the drainers.

I chose to go with Blue.
I wasn't too excited with the stuff that I pulled, because it felt pretty hard for me to actually make a good deck out of them. I knew I was going blue though.



Even though I pulled Purphoros and his weapon, I still didn't choose them because it didn't really have enough creatures that can do anything good together with blue. So I decided on green, playtested it, hated it, then switched to red, then at the last second, switched to red realizing that there is a fair low cost cards in there.

My Deck -

I didn't realize that I had 18 lands instead of 17 until I came home.

Round 1- Game 1-My opponent was Green/Black. I casted a Balefule Eidolon turn two, then began bestowing cards onto it until it became a 6/7 flier I think, and just kept on swinging with it until he reached to zero.

Game 2- I mulled down to six. I had some mana screwing, while he casted Courser of Kruphix and began gaining life with land and was able to cast bigger stuff and just run me over.

Game 3- He was able to cast Courser of Kruphix again, but it didn't work out for him when I was able to cast my harpy and bestow it, then cast the blue archetype and end it that turn.


I'm too lazy to put down the rest, but it ended with a 3-1, awarding me with three packs. Two of them had the starter cards (black and white ones) and Ephara, God of the Polis. I then learned that if a creature entered the battlefield under your last turn, you get to draw a card on your opponent's turn and an additional card on your turn. So I was pretty happy in the end.

I lost the first two rounds, losing both games in each, then won the last two rounds, winning all 4 games in each.

I played with Red/Black, having picked the Red promo, and drawn a foil Mogis, God of Slaughter.

Mogis was sweet, I have a feeling he'll be standard viable in Rakdos.

Chaos draft sounds awesome. I wish my LGS would do those more often.

Let me see if I can remember my games...

Deckbuilding:

Took the Path of Wisdom (blue), but all my packs opened offered nothing. No voyage's ends, no griptides, and no retraction helixes. The only blue cards of note were Archetype of Imagination, and the blue promo. I had a few other useful blue cards, but it couldn't cement or even splash alongside any other colours.

It came between White, Green, and Black. White had the Eidolon of Countless Battles, the Akroan Skyguard, and a few good tricks, but nothing long-term. Green had my most solid creatures, but lacked any reach and only a single finisher. Black had Baleful Eidolon, the monstrous Gorgon, and two Drown in Sorrows, but no way of interacting in the air either.

I ended up going with the most aggressive White/Green deck I could build. I knew everyone else's top-ends would dominate mine, so it was either win early or lose.

Round 1: vs Red/Green Tempo Monsters

My round 1 opponent was able to go almost Mono-Red from his packs, with just a handful of green cards supporting a Polukranos. Game 1 I got utterly dominated as a bunch of three-cost creatures sat in my hand. Game 2 I opened poorly, but was able to use Gods Willing and Feral Invocation on a Setessan Oathsworn, putting him out of fighting and burn range to take the game. Game 3 I got rolled over hard as I drew land after land.

Still, the proof of concept was there - it could win, just so long as I don`t stumble or so long as my opponent does.

Round 2: vs Blue/Black Control

My round 2 opponent was feeling pretty bummed off his Round 1 loss, but had a pretty good deck. I was able to win game 1 as he got stuck on land, only able to start accessing his three-mana spells once he copied my Voyaging Satyr with his Heroic Clone. I dodged a Hero's Downfall with Gods Willing, and the Setessan Oathsworn went unopposed from there in. Games 2 and 3 I got hammered quickly as each critter I put out was removed, and then he put down an Eater of Hope alongside two other large creatures.

Round 3: vs Red/Black Control

My third opponent was having a case of deck conspiring against him for his previous matches, even though his deck was half-removal. I lost 0-2 as nothing I put out could stay down, and got rolled over by a big Cyclops and Giant.

Round 4: vs Blue/Black & Red/Green (switched decks between games)

I was able to turn things around in Round 4 as my opponent was in the same boat I was - except he had tried to make his promo-pack worthwhile. This time my deck got rolling, putting down threats and growing them quickly, and finishing with a Glimpse the Sun God on his end-step (also targeting my own heroic creatures for extra size) to win game 1. Game 2 I was able to put down a Centaur Courser on turn 3 and kept pressure against him. His Red/Green deck was much more challenging to face against, and I had the feeling that him and I were in the same boat, but I had jumped shipped right at the start where he tried to make it work.

Round 5: vs Blue/Green

My final games were against a young kid, probably 13 years old, but who was very well versed in the game. Things went pretty much the same as Round 4, and when his deck stumbled on mana I was able to just crush him. Still, I've never had as much respect for a younger gamer as I did him, since he was polite, professional, understood what everything did, was fluent in all the mechanics, and never got upset at the game. A model player.

My playgroup organizes our own. It continues to be my favorite way to draft. It's the difference between drafting archetypes and drafting actual decks. Plus people get to open things like Dark Confidants and Glimmerposts and Aether Vials and Wastelands.