A tough build

Well, I attended the Mirrodin Besieged midnight Prerelease last night but it didn't go as smoothly as Scars. I opened a Sword of Feast and Famine and a True Conviction but a couple bombs wasn't enough to get me over the hump. The deck had a decent amount of usable metalcraft dudes, a lot of conditional removal and not quite enough good artifacts to make metalcraft run. I chose Mirran so only the White and Red was usable (though the Green was marginally playable). Here's the pool, shorn of it's useless colors

White	Red	Artifacts
Abuna Acolyte 2 X Ardent Recruit Auriok Sunchaser 2 X Divine Offering Ghalma's Warden Glimmerpoint Stag 2 X Leonin Relic-Warder Loxodon Partisan Master's Call Revoke Existence Seize the Initiative Sunspear Shikari True Conviction	2 X Blisterstick Shaman Burn the Impure Concussive Bolt 2 X Crush Galvanoth 2 X Gnathosaur Goblin Wardriver Koth's Courier Kuldotha Rebirth Rally the Forces Turn to Slag	Argentum Armor Bladed Sentinel 2 X Copper Myr Echo Circlet Grafted Exoskeleton Leaden Myr Nihil Spellbomb Shriekhorn Soliton Spin Engine Strider Harness Sylvok Lifestaff Vector Asp Vulshok Replica	Auriok Replica Copper Carapace Darksteel Plate Golem's Heart 2 X Gust-Skimmer Myr Reservoir Razorfield Rhino 2 X Silverskin Armor Sphere of the Suns Snapsail Glider Sword of Feast and Famine Throne of Geth Viridian Claw

I wanted to run metalcraft but the pool is long on playable equipment and short on good dudes to carry it. Here's what I came up with, with less than a minute to spare...

Creatures	Spells and Land
Abuna Acolyte 2 X Blisterstick Shaman Galvanoth Glimmerpoint Stag Goblin Wardriver Leonin Relic-Warder Loxodon Partisan Razorfield Rhino Sunspear Shikari Vulshok Replica	Burn the Impure Concussive Bolt 2 X Divine Offering Master's Call Revoke Existence Sword of Feast and Famine Sylvok Lifestaff True Conviction Turn to Slag Viridian Claw 9 Plains 9 Mountain

How would you build this pool?

Scars Pre-release, or how I punted with my above average pool

So the pool I opened for the Midnight Pre-release at Silver Spring Hobby was pretty solid. My black was the strongest with good removal and a bomb flyer, red had 2 shatters but not much else to mention, white had a very aggressive curve with 2 Glint Hawks a Glint hawk Idol as well as the stat-boosting enchantment Tempered Steel. I built the deck playing Black and Red to play my good removal and some shatters and ended up playing higher-costed mediocre red cards instead of my aggressive white curve. I was enthralled with infect but had infecters that were better in a draft deck than a sealed pool, but chose to play them anyway because infect excites me, and it was late. I also hadn't laid out the white cards because of time building constraint so I decided to run what I had. I started off 2-0 but then finished out 0-3 ending up with no prize and left to get home and sleep before working later that afternoon. The following evening I reevaluated my pool and found that had I played B/W I would have had much more synergy as well as a very aggressive deck.

The rares in my pool were: Tempered Steel, Genesis Wave, Liege of the Tangle, Carnifex Demon, Ratchet Bomb, and Nim Deathmantle.

Here is what I should have played:

2 Glint Hawk
Salvage Scout
Horizon Spellbomb
Ratchet Bomb
Nim Deathmantle
Leaden Myr
Iron Myr
Glint Hawk Idol
Contagion Clasp (foil)
Bladed Pinions
Auriok Edgewright
Auriok Sunchaser
Tempered Steel
Dispense Justice
2 Moriok Replica
Rusted Relic
Skin Render
Flesh Allergy
Trigon of Corruption
Glimmerpoint Stag
Bleak Coven Vampires
Carnifex Demon
16 Land

This version of the deck plays the aggressive metalcraft cards and the equipment card I didn't fit into my other deck. Glimmerpoint Stag, Salvage Scout, and the Glint hawks allow me to reuse or reset my Contagion Clasp, Ratchet Bomb, and Trigon of Corrupton. Stag has added synergy with Bleak Coven Vampires and Skinrender, as well as adding more counters to Carnifex Demon for more -1/-1 counter distribution. I think if I had played this build I could have been 4-1 since I doubt even this could have defeated Caleb's pool (Koth of the Hammer, Mox Opal, Argent Sphinx). Not only did he open ~$100 in cards, but he also went undefeated (giving me my first loss in round 3).

Overall I think it was a great night, had fun and learned many things about SOM limited. I also learned that the sealed format is defined by bombs. I lost to Koth, Sword of Body and Mind, Darksteel Juggernaut, and Putrefax). I also faced opponents who each had 1 of the 3 different planeswalkers in the set. CBG had Elspeth in R1, Caleb had Koth in R3, and Bagha had Venser in R4, luckily for me I didn't actually face Elspeth or Venser. Caleb found Koth all 3 games, including punishing my by playing it turn 3 off a myr game 1 for missing my second land drop (I kept a 1 lander with a myr and three other 2 drops in my hand).

Tabasco

Back

So, after a long hiatus, CBG is back on the Magic horse. TooSarcastic invited me to a birthday Cube, then JBro invited me to a birthday mitotic draft and lo and behold, the effin Scars of Mirrodin prerelease was this weekend and the point is...I thought I was out, but they keep pulling me back in. One of the dudes in the playgroup has started a podcast (whose name i will pimp once he gets back to me) but I think there's a place for a more active blog. I'm going to rehash my two prerelease pools here and we can talk it out.

Could Game Universe Be Hosting a Prerelease This Fall?

Gentlemen. I have just returned from the Kalahari. It may not be Kgalagadi Africa, but what's left of Lake Delton sure looks lifeless enough.

You saw it here- swim at your own risk!

I wanted to give Fugie McWizard the first opportunity to speak on the topic (since he is way more in the know on this subject), but I have heard a few people talking about the idea that our local gaming store, Game Universe, might be able to host a Prerelease. The idea originated with this announcement by Wizards that it would be "recruiting locations" to bring "launch parties" (the new corporate tag for Release Tournaments) and (more to the point) Prerelease Tournaments "right to your door." Oh, also the Prerelease is being moved up to six days prior to the release. The announcement links to a page describing the criteria for running a Prerelease. Let's take a look at what it would take for GU to run one.

First, Wizards divides the opportunities for running sanctioned events into three tiers, Gateway, Core and Advanced. There are requirements that need to be met for each level. For the Gateway level, the only obstacle worth any mention is having access to a public venue. Prereleases require Core level support however, so the bar is higher. Here are the requirements and my analysis of Game Universe's capability of delivering on them.

1. "Must meet all Gateway level requirements." Like I stated earlier, the only real difficulty here would be access to a public venue, (and I guess maybe needing to "schedule at least one instance of play so that it can be displayed on our locator.") Since GU is public game store and already runs three weekly Magic nights, it has these issues covered, no problem.

2. "Must have scheduled, run, and reported a minimum of 4 tournaments in the preceding 12 months." See above. Man, GU runs four sanctioned tournaments in two weeks. Even if Wizards means Release level events when it says "tournaments," GU still has the requirement covered.

3. "Must have a delinquency rate in the last 12 months no greater than 20%." Okay, here's where it gets interesting. Uh, Fugie, what the hell does this mean? Does it mean delinquency of the TO reporting results to Wizards? I don't think this really makes sense, since most tournaments results aren't required to be reported, and DCI Reporter won't even pair the next round if you don't enter the match results for the last round. Does this mean players who have been playing at the store and have stopped coming? I don't know, and can't tell what GU's ability to meet this criteria.

4. "Must have issued 6 new DCI numbers in the last 12 months. " You can tell the new focus is on "acquisition," as the Suits say. I see at least one guy getting signed up at any given Release Tournament, so I would have to guess that this would be a slam dunk. At any rate, it wouldn't be hard to find half a dozen new folks if that was all that was standing between us and Milwaukee Prerelease, right guys?

5. "Both tournament organizer and location must not be currently suspended by the DCI ." Heh. I didn't even know the DCI could suspend an entire location.

6. "Must complete a Prerelease application and demonstrate sufficient play space." This criterion is interesting. I assume the application isn't Azorious-level bureaucratic red tape and can be completed. The play space is less certain. Last year (or was it two years ago now?) when GU was renting that space next door this would have been easy, but now- I don't know. Our only real hope is that Wizards expects venues to be smaller than past Prereleases, since there will inevitably be more of them in any given geographic area. Still, I know a Prerelease would be far more popular at the store than a Release, and GU can barely accommodate those. This is likely to be sticking point unless Game Universe takes steps to address the issue.

7. "Must have a permanent structure with bathroom facilities." I think we've got that covered, although I bet there'd be a line after lunch on a Prerelease.

8. "In addition, we recommend that your location have access to food within 1 mile (2 km)." Ding. Frogger anyone?

So there you have it. According to Wizards' new requirements, it looks like there might be two possible sticking points- whatever the hell the 20% delinquency rate is, and available space. Before we even saw these criteria common sense would have dictated that GU's lack of space was their big problem. This bodes well for Wizards (and their list of criteria), since the practical problems of running such an event need to be addressed prior to getting permission to run them. Any more enlightenment on this subject would be greatly appreciated, if people have it. Maybe we'll be busting Shards of Alara packs in Milwaukee on September 27th.

T

New Big Set!!

If you can't tell by the title that I am excited, then you don't have a pulse. While I am a casual player at heart, I enjoy going to a prerelease more than anything, with Big Sets taking top billing. I am not a morning person, but will gladly get up before the sun so that I can be in one of the first pods in some far off location (this time Chicago's west side). I am not quite sure which I enjoy more, sealed Big Set Prerelease or draft Big Set Prerelease.

While I do intend to agree with Coyote that Wizards is being obvious with some of the new game mechanics, I won't let that curb my enthusiasm (and for the record that show is absolutely awful and unfunny). I will gladly sit down with my bag of hundreds of counters and shuffle up with everyone else.

As far as going to Madison versus Chicago debate, to me it is a choice between: Quality Judging (Madison) & less competitive play (Chicago) (When I say less competitive play I mean fewer players who take this too seriously, after all it is a prerelase not a PTQ, i.e. fewer jerks). To me personally, I am on the fence and could go either way. However for others it is a mater of Geography. Our play group is scattered around the metro area and for some Chicago is closer and others Madison is closer. What really complicates this is that Madison's location is constant and Chicago's location moves around.

I won't really get in to the specifics of the cards, as I haven't been really paying too much attention to the previewed cards specifically. I tend to take the view that the individual cards aren't as import to know, as having an understanding of the mechanics and potential synergies, when going into a prerelease. Call it flawed if you must but that is my opinion.

Well, to those of you going to the prerelease, safe travels, may you get passed good cards (if you do deck swaps, if not may you open well), but most importantly have fun.

Morningtide Prerelease

After going 0-6 in cube drafting, Too Sarcastic does okay at the prerelease. I went with Major Luck and Scoop Phase. In our sealed pod we were all still in prize range by the last round, but we needed a win. Unfortunately Scoop and Major got paired against one another in the last round, so only one would get the packs (it was Scoops). Luckily those two agreed to split the prize either way, so there were no hard feelings. I lost the last round and finished 2-1-1, just of prize range. We all drafted trips Morningtide and I actually got to the finals with a controllish rogue/fairies deck, where I conceded to a fellow from MKE because we needed to get back on the road. So I ended up walking away with seven Morngingtide packs. We only need to rustle up one more Morngingtide pack (I'm looking at you Major Luck) to do a full 8 person LLM draft! Any takers? I'd like to do a draft sometime this coming week, because by next weekend, life is going to be crazy and I probably won't have time. Let me know if you are down and when you could do it!
T