Winning Out

So the prerelease was awesome. This was actually the very first large set prerelease event that I have ever entered, barring the one time I got to do a 2HG with a very new player on Sunday. I managed to bum a ride with the Captain and Hot Sauce. We arrived at the venue at 8:45 am for the 9:00 start and there were already dozens of people lined up outside. We ran into Pseudonymous Drama Student, but he had preregistered and got into flight 1. By the time we made it to the front of the line, it was flight 3. We got our product immediately upon paying and started registering. This is awesome. Go go gadget prerelease. The prerelease foil, Demigod of Revenge reminds me of the Guildpact foil. That is to say, I can see why they ordered an alternate art version of this.

I am not going to list all the cards in my pool because I can't link, but I will say that I had some very strong RG, but not quite enough playables and decided to go with a U/W/b build instead. Here's the cards and the build I played...

G/W Hybrid - no green sources

Safehold Elite-1(G/W)-Persist. 2/2. A bear that comes back and chumps after he's been outclassed.

Raven's Run Dragoon-2(G/W)(G/W)-Can't be blocked by black. 3/3. Hill Giant with an upside. This is sealed.

White - Primary color due to this...

Armored Ascension-3W-Aura-Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each Plains you control and has flying. Blanchwood armor just wins games without evasion. 'nuff said.

Niveous Wisps-W-Instant-Target creature becomes white until EOT. Cantrip. I played it as a one mana cantrip. ymmv.

Safehold Sentry-1W-2W,Q:Safehold Sentry gets +0/+2 until EOT. 2/2. I had to have the captain remind me to play my bears. Never actually used the ability, but the threat of it held off attacks a couple times. Would play again.

Rune-Cervin Rider-3W-Flying. (G/W)(G/W):Rune-Cervin Rider gets +1/+1 until EOT. A shade with evasion. Very solid though I didn't draw him much.

Prison Term-1WW-Aura-Enchanted creature can't attack or block and it's activated abilities can't be played. When a creature comes into play under your opponent's control, you may attach Prison Term to that creature. I only played this once and managed to stick it on a Giantbaiting token (rtfc, gets sacced EOT). I was really curious how good it would be and didn't get a chance to really explore it because I failed to draw it much.

Inquisitor's Snare-1W-Instant-Prevent all damage target attacking or blocking creature would deal this turn. If that creature is black or red, destroy it. All kinds of good.

Steel of the Godhead-2(U/W)-Aura-As long as enchanted creature is white, it gets +1/+1 and has lifelink. As long as enchanted creature is blue it gets +1/+1 and is unblockable. Nobody played any of these hybrid auras against me. They are pretty much nuts if you can maximize them. The GW is insane, and the BR is br-don-ken. UW is okay. Didn't run into the RG or UB, but how bad could they be if they can give +2/+2?

Glamer Spinners-4(U/W)-Flash. Flying. When Glamer spinners cip, attach all Auras enchanting target permanent to another permanent with the same controller. 2/4. Okay, this guys is being played because he is a flash 2/4 flier. the ability is occasionally relevant.

Godhead of Awe-(U/W)(U/W)(U/W)(U/W)(U/W)-Flying. Other creatures are 1/1. 4/4. Yeah, she just wins games. Often a one-sided Wrath of God. Kills anything with a -1/-1 counter on it. I failed to lose a game in which I cast her.

Barrenton Cragtreads-2(U/W)(U/W)-Can't be blocked by red creatures. 3/3. Hill Giant #2.

Consign to Dream-2U-Instant-Return target permanent to it's owner's hand. If that permanent is red or green, put it on top of it's owner's library instead. The more I play limited, the more I love bounce.

Merrow Wavebreakers-4U-1U,Q:Merrow Wavebreakers gains flying until EOT. 3/3. A flying vigilant 3/3. This is costed correctly, which means there are times you are not going to want to run him. Decidedly mediocre for me all day.

Faerie Swarm-3U-Flying. Faerie Swarm's power and toughness are each equal to the number of blue permanents you control. Usually and evasive 2/2. Sometimes better.

River's Grasp-3(U/B)-Sorcery-If U was spent to play River's Grasp, return up to one target creature to it's owner's hand. If B was spent to play River's Grasp, target player reveals his or her hand, you choose a nonland card from it, then that player discards that card. Bounce, removal, coercion...what's not to like?

Inkfathom Witch-1(U/B)-Fear. 2UB:Each unblocked creature becomes 4/1 until EOT. 1/1. Yeah, this one is awesome. I was moderately surprised, but there's a lot of evasion in the set.

2 Gloomlance-3BB-Destroy target creature. Destroy target creature. If that creature was green or white, its controller discards a card. Unconditional removal, which I needed. Sometimes boarded one our for a Torpor Dust if my opponent's curve was low.

Watchwing Scarecrow-4-Watchwing Scarecrow has vigilance as long as you control a white creature. Watchwing Scarecrow has flying as long as you control a blue creature. 2/4. Scarecrows are the changelings of Shadowmoor. Very awesome in draft. I would expect them to settle in just below removal and bombs, though some are better than others. There is one which changes colors of things and fixes your mana and it's a 2/2 for 3. It is very, very awesome. Totally wrecked us in 2HG.

Lurebound Scarecrow-3-As Lurebound Scarecrow CIP, choose a color. When you control no permanents of the chosen color, sacrifice Lurebound Scarecrow. 4/4. A little marginal in sealed, but I think this is rather bomby in draft when you should be pretty close to monocolor.

Wingrattle Scarecrow-3-Wingrattle Scarecrow has flying as long as you control a blue creature. Wingrattle Scarecrow has persist as long as you control a black creature. 2/2.

Pili-Pala-2-Flying. 2,Q:Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. 1/1. Crappy color fixing is still color fixing. They seem to have really nerfed color-fixing in the format (at least among the cards I saw). I think you so need to really focus on using hybrid to the max. Pick two or three colors. If you have 3, avoid double costs on the border colors.

I also had a Mystic Gate which is the UW rare dual.

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Round 1-vs. UW control. I won game one on the back of a timely Godhead of Awe. He had a scarecrow that is a 6/6 for 5. It puts a -1/-1 counter on it at end of combat if it attacked or blocked. In other words, once Godhead was down, he couldn't do anything with his threat. Games 2 and 3 were very similar to one another, as he got down double 6/6 scarecrow both games. There wasn't a ton I could do about it and died. Only drew one Gloomlance and never saw the Prison Term. Not sure if that would have helped. It wasn't particularly close.

So my back was up against the wall right away, which I guess helped focus my efforts. The next round I was up against a guy who didn't do a whole ton but still managed to beat me game 1. Then, I killed him. Godhead of Awe totally got stranded in my hand with 4 UW sources and a swamp for like 3 turns. That mana cost looks easy, but one splash can kill it.

Round 3 was interesting in that I again lost game 1. I don't think my deck was nearly as powerful as some of the builds, but I think I had a pretty good grasp of operations management and that managed to get me there. I took game 2 on the back of Pili-Pala and Safehold Sentry. I had Godhead in hand and the mana to cast it, but his side of the board was empty and I didn't feel like playing into removal. He didn't cast anything for four turns and I took our slogan to heart. Sometimes all you need is a 1/1. Or a 1/1 and a 2/2. Anyways.

Round 4, I got paired up against a guy who must have had some amazing stuff that he didn't draw because I crushed him with Godhead in game 1, and a pantsed-up Glamer Spinners in game 2. Lifelinked, unblockable dudes with +1/+1 for each Plains are some good.

So, 3-1 and 6 packs. Hot. I think I agree with TS that the format is going to be pretty fast in general. I chose to play all day and never regretted it. Draft is going to be ridiculously fast, I think. There were people who were casting 4/4s on turn 3 and then pants-ing up for ridiculous evasive 6/6s all over the place. Thank goodness I lost my first round. Also, the dude who beat me round 1, totally went 3-0 and got paired up with the Captain in round 4. The Captain crushed him. Thank goodness for carmates. REVENGE!

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So then Pseudonymous Drama Student and I decided to pair up for the 2HG since Hot Sauce and The Captain were intending to do the same. We opened like fiends in GW, with Wilt-leaf Liege, the double stream of life, TWO Oracle of Nectars (2(G/W)-X,T:Gain X life.) Shield of the Oversoul (makes Oracle indestructible) and various and sundry, including 3 duals (one foil). The other deck was monored. Nice. Open. We thought our 3-0 chances were pretty good. We got our round 1 opponent down to 1. They bounced one dude to the top of the deck so we had to redraw it. Any guesses as to whether or not the top card was a burn spell when they killed us? We won rounds 2 and 3 handily. w00t for 3 more packs.

I hit up captain essex for 3 more packs so I have 4 sets total. All in all, a good take on the day. My tip: Lose in the first round and then win out from there.