#mtg sealed

[peoplegettingreallymadatcards]

[tekdecksmtg]

From the Archives: Wilds of Eldraine Prerelease

As I recently did the Bloomburrow Prerelease, I thought I’d look back on my first prerelease, which happened to be my first in-person Magic event since getting back into the game!

I was writing some logs at the time on my experiences but didn’t post them anywhere. I still remember how much excitement I had coming out of this event, just it being my first tabletop Magic in person in like 25 years. Let’s see what I thought at the time!

Archive:

First ever prerelease event and first time playing in-person MTG in about 25 years!

I’m given my prerelease kit which contains a promo card Restless Vinestalk and six Wilds of Eldraine draft boosters from which I need to construct a 40 card deck. I open my packs and then sort all my cards by color.

While I had some nice white pulls, I knew that I needed to focus on creatures and interaction. After sifting through all my cards I eventually narrowed down to green and black for my deck.

Match 1: After the construction period, the Magic Companion app tells me where to sit. I’m put at Table 4 against white/green. Can’t believe I’m about to play my first game!

Game 1: Got out some creatures and damage, but he had a flying griffin that was just too strong and ultimately beat me. I had seven mana up for Virtue of Persistence but it was worthless to cast as I needed an answer. Went into desperation mode digging via my Collector’s Vault finding a flier to block one turn but inevitably nothing else.

Game 2: More of the same considering decks are only 40 cards. He was able to pump up creatures with Royal Roles, copying them as well. I was able to take his flier by casting a fight spell targeting it versus my Scream Puff, but his tramplers were a problem. Ultimately ran out of time in our match and he was ahead on life so he was awarded Game 2 (though he was in control anyway) and subsequently the match.

First match lost 0-2-0.

Match 2: As we get ready to move tables, the Companion app tells us what’s next and I’m surprised to see that I have a ‘bye’. As there were uneven players someone had to sit out each match. I would’ve preferred to actually play but fortunately having the bye awards me the win at least.

Second match won 2-0-0.

Match 3: I’m slotted back at Table 4 again for my match against an opponent playing predominantly blue and black.

Game 1: Quite a bit of good back and forth, creatures attacking and damage being dealt. The game turned on him being able to get me to sacrifice a couple of creatures followed by fliers that I couldn’t stop and ultimately beat me down for the loss.

Game 2: Really close and intense game. Lots of back and forth for a while with creatures trading off, but the game changer was my Virtue of Persistence which started bringing back creatures from a graveyard each turn, focusing on his dead fliers and my food creators first for defense then moving to offense. Overwhelmed him and won my first game in person!

Game 3: A little close early but I was able to drop my Sentinel of Lost Lore which got rid of his creature/adventure in exile as well as his graveyard. Then I was able to bargain my Hamlet Glutton on T5, followed by more creatures the next turn. He appeared to get mana flooded and I was able to take down the game pretty easily!

Third match won 2-1-0.

Overall I finished 2-1 (4-3-0) and in 11th place out of 25. The two wins awarded me two Set Boosters and I was also given a Magic 30th anniversary harvester of Souls for participating.

Absolutely incredible event; just such a fun time and made me realize how much I’ve missed playing Magic in person, especially at an event like this where everyone is on equal footing. Can’t wait to go for another; might have to sign up for the Legacy Open next!

Additional Notes:

* Virtue of Persistence was my favorite card from the deck, so powerful to get that early removal and game-changing if you can get the enchantment side out later.

* Collector’s Vault did absolute work, letting me cycle cards to rebalance my hand while also making Treasure tokens that could fix mana and allow me to cast more spells.

* Hamlet Glutton was only seen once but dropping a 6/6 trample on T5 is quite nice with the bonus 3 life gain coming along with it.

* My deck had no way to deal with creatures with evasion; I need to remember that for future events. There needs to be a way to stop fliers especially.

[beardwitchbrews]

Wasn’t able to attend the LCI prerelease (friend had car trouble) but still swung by my shop to pick up my kit. Was a super fun building process, and I’m stoked I opened Thunderhulk. Feel like I could have gone the distance with this thing, but ah well, next time!

Highlights in the list: I think that UW is going to end up being a menace in the format, particularly any deck that gets there on Tinker’s Tote. Card seems like an absolute house, and as a subscriber to Rectangle Theory… well, I mean, it’s three rectangles! I’m curious but optimistic on the “Tap X artifacts or creatures” mechanics- Warden of the Inner Sky needing THREE is pushing it, but between Brackish Blunder making maps, the Tote, and other cheap two-for-one bodies, I think it gets there. And, obviously, Threefold Thunderhulk is not a real Magic card.

List seems light on interaction- would have loved a Dusk Heart Reliquary- but I think that’s also indicative of the format as a whole. Removal is in lesser supply than normal, so things like Quicksand Whirlpool are gonna pull more weight than normal.

Bummed I didn’t get any games in (second prerelease I’ve missed in a row 😭), but may try and make it to a FNM to do an in-person draft to make up for the miss.

(Bonus deck #2: I opened the Mycotyrant and I tried so hard to make it work. Ah, well!)

[calamarimo]

IM LIVE AT https://www.twitch.tv/calamarimo !!!!

This is the first episode of a series a friend and I are gonna be doing for a while, where we do a sealed draft of every set in MTG, starting with Limited Edition Alpha, and going in chronological order... but every set adds to our collection as a whole, meaning our decks will evolve with the times.

Come join in, as I'm a bit tipsy and may need deckbuilding advice lmao

[i-am-nickelbolt]

I heard that my LGS was running a Dominaria Remastered Sealed RCQ with a top 8 draft! My wife thought I should go, that I needed the time for myself. I was pretty excited to get to my first paper Magic event in almost 9 months. Lets see how this mtgdad did...

It has been a minute since I've had to register a sealed deck.

I think my pool was pretty decent. I immediately pulled together blue and black, as Urza and Chainer were probably my best cards, and I had some nice interaction. White had an okay curve with some fliers, but nothing to write home about. Red had an okay curve but no removal outside of a Slice and Dice, which had my eye. Almost all of my green cards were unplayable, but I could splash a Call of the Herd and a Spiritmonger essentially for free. Juggernauts are nice on rate, but they don't necessarily fit with controll-y Sultai.

I ended up splashing red for Slice and Dice, and white for Radiant's Judgment. I really agonized over a Pyre Zombie, and ultimately cut it. Maybe the card is okay, but I always thought it was so unbelievably slow, and I was worried about the double red.

I had interaction, a lot of cycling to dig for my rares, i thought I could back door into the top 8 draft.

So how'd it go?

About as terrible as possible.

Okay, so my first event in 9 months, I've been starved of slinging cardboard, I am literally chomping at the bit... Bye. I get the bye round 1. So i get to sit around for another hour. Great.

Looking around the room, I have to say I'm feeling pretty okay about where I'm at. Lots of grinding, and maybe my deck is a little underpowered, but it's got the tools. I'm excited for round 2.

0-2. My deck just decided to vomit all over the floor. I mulliganed three times in two games, I drew all my expensive cards, none of my interaction. Ugh. I knew my opponent, I drafted against him a couple times at this shop, and he was up for getting in some more reps. So we played a couple more games that I won pretty handily. Just have to run the table.

When I saw the Siege-Gang Commander in game 1, I thought I lucked out with the Slice and Dice to mitigate the tokens. I was kind of expecting a Whitemane Lion at some point, but I was in a pretty good spot, or so I thought. But have you ever played a game of Magic against the Siege-Gang Commander and Deadwood Treefolk combo? 0-2.

So I wait for an hour, my deck just decides not to show up for a match, and then I lost to infinitely recurring probably the best rare in the set. Pretty hard to find the positives.

A couple observations:

The Lairs are nice in that you can pick up your cycling lands. Also, the Lairs enter the battlefield untapped. It's been a long time since I played a Lair, and I'm used to the Ravnica bounce-lands. It's not all upside though, there are bounce spells that can hit lands, and I watched someone get Recoiled into last week. Ugh.

Snap over-performed. I thought I wouldn't really want it because I'm not so much a tempo deck, but being able to double-spell is just so, so powerful. It also deals with Pacifism pretty cleanly.

The Radiant's Judgment splash was ill-advised. I thought it would be fine since I could just cycle it away (and the land could cycle also) but the card as written was just dead every game. I probably should have played the Pyre Zombie instead.

Could I have built a different deck? I could have leaned harder into Grixis or Sultai, and in hindsight, I think the green cards I could have played would probably be a little better?

Anyway, Dominaria Remastered seems sweet, I hope I can get a chance to draft it...

[the-burnished-hart]

Here’s my sealed pool from yesterday’s Saturday Morning Special event. What would you have played?