Magic: The Gathering (Unreleased Sets)

My brother also got Atarka, in his prize booster. And in my BR pack was a Thunderbreak Regent promo.

Some guy had stupid amounts of luck and openened new Narset, Monastery Mentor and three Myth Realized. I destroyed him, because that's what happens if you abbandon Red!

But yeah, went 3-1 and third place despite being mana flooded most of the time.

My bombs hardly saw play, but the Kollaghan intro pack dragon won me a game against aformentioned guy. He just got a Kill Shot-esque card from Narset's +1 meaning he could kill one of my two creatures and get back into the game. Well, I had the Dash lord and Thunderbreak on the board and just dashed my entire hand in one go, boosting a bit everywhere and swinging for 24 or so. I have feeling that this is gonna be a fun limited format.

I had the kind of deck where I would have liked to face an Atarka, unfortunately the infinite-youthful scholars silumgar deck i faced in round 4 was a nightmare for me.

My dragons of tarkir rares were fairly awful and completely dragon-less.

edited 21st Mar '15 2:36:15 PM by MrShine

So, prerelase tales, part two:

After third round, I decided my deck needed some more beef. So I checked everything I had to see if I could maybe splash something else for some CMC 3 or 4 creatures (anything I could add from Green was like 5 or 6, and mostly crappy dumb vanillas, that wasn't going to work out, and Red, besides what I already had, was kind of the weenies color on my boosters). I noticed my options for color fixing were Dromoka Monument, the B/G refuge and two Sheltered Aeries and Explosive Vegetation (these last three I was already running anyways because goddamit Atarka 5CC is not even remotely fair you humongous lizard dweeb). So I checked my Black and White cards, and I noticed I had pulled a Deathbringer Regent and Shieldhide Dragon. And I was already running Atarka, Destructor Dragon and Sarkhan's Triumph. So the next step was absolutely obvious.
"Fuck it, I'm going 4-color".
I don't remember what I took out but Deathbringer Regent, Dromoka Monument and Shieldhide Dragon were in. Swapped out four lands for the B/G land, a couple swamps and a plains.

Best. Decision. Ever.
Now, I lost my next match too because I my opponent drew all of his removal (literally, I never managed to have more than a creature out at the same time), then dropped a Dragonlord Kolaghan and I died before I could do anything. And then I sideboarded in some Dragon hate and a couple black and white removal in case he had something else hidden in there (Spoiler: he did, Surrak hits hard). The problem was that I didn't only sideboard some Dragon hate. I sideboarded my whole sideboard (i.e. most of my red and green cards) because it was all sleeved and I spent too much time thinking what to sideboard in so I didn't even bother checking what those cards lying in the table were before rushing to shuffle again. So my second game was lost because I'm dumb.
Anyways, I decided I would give the deck an actual try. In the next match I won because of Shieldhide Dragon (4/4 lifelink flying), Dromoka Monument and Atarka (well, she cleared the way that one time). Then, the last match, I won pretty hard the first game with Monument while holding on to Atarka in my hand and lost the second game because I misplayed (attacked to kill some dudes instead of just putting Deathbringer Regent down to blow everything up to then cast Shieldhide too; then when I did it the next turn I had to play Shieldhide just to up the creature count and he could give indestructible to his creatures), the game dragged on a couple more turns and I died when my opponent was at 1 life left. I lost the third game because what the fuck Dromoka Dragonlord what the actual flying fuck.

Still, a pretty cool prerelease that gave me some tales to tell. I didn't expect to win a single match, so going 3-3 is actually nice.

edited 21st Mar '15 3:17:51 PM by 2Zak

I played Ojutai. What things I had in-color weren't very good or very many, and what else I had wasn't enough to justify going with something else. Unsurprisingly, it went badly.

So far, I find this set fun, but annoyingly unbalanced towards not-white color combos. Also, if they wanted to have ineffectual mythics, Living Lore would be a good one. Because I never want to see it again in limited.

I'm just about to leave to head to my pre-release, I think I'm going to go Atarka for the first tournament and Dromoka for the other. Wish me luck!

I went with Ojutai at my prerelease. My rares were;

• Living Lore
• Supplant Form
• Damnable Pact
• Avatar of the Resolute
• Boltwing Marauder
• Ojutai's Command (promo)

Here's what my full pool looked like. There wasn't too big a turnout for our store's prerelease. I ended up going 1-2. My pool lacked any real bombs in my colors, and almost no mana fixing with which to take on a third color. I did find Skywise Teachings to be halfway decent, though.

Under 100 people at ours, or roughly half the number that Khans had. Fetch lands matter, apparently.

Turns out I came on casual day, so no extra boosters for winning except for the event winner. Nuts.

Currently won both my games 2-0, should have come in yesterday.

But hey, I pulled Surrak and had a turn 3 win: turn 3 Dragon-Scarred Bear, turn 4 Surrak swing 8, turn 5 stampeding elk heard swing 12.

It was against a spell heavy deck.

I picked Atarka. My promo was Surrak, and whist I didn't get present Atarka the lone Fate Reforged booster did contain her younger self, which was handy.

I ended up winning the first two rounds 2-0. Which is fairly unprecedented for me.

Also I got a Narset but didn't play her because everything else was pushing me red/green.

I played a Naya deck at my pre-release.

I might have had a bit too much of my mana curve on 4 and 5 mana. I'm also loving Anafenza and her bolster shenanigans.

I went Dromoka, but my boosters really didn't help me. I did get two Anafenzas, one promo and one regular, and I pulled Sarkahn.

It was a casual so I got an extra two packs, the rares I got from those would have really helped me during the tournament.

edited 22nd Mar '15 12:14:10 PM by BigMadDraco

Still in the mood to play magic but not to incinerate money on mtgo, so if anyone wants to battle with your pre-release pool on cockatrice i'd be down. Mistershine is my name on there.

I went Ojutai and opened the most miserable pool I've ever seen and went 4-0-1 with this pile:

Creatures:

1x Palace Familiar

2x Territorial Roc

2x Misthoof Kirin

2x Zephyr Scribe

1x Jeskai Infiltrator

1x Sandsteppe Outcast

1x Champion of Arashin

1x Monastery Loremaster

1x Dragonlord Ojutai

1x Belltoll Dragon

Spells:

1x Soul Summons

1x Silkwrap

1x Center Soul

1x Ojutai's Breath

1x Reduce in Stature

1x Taigam's Strike

1x Scale Blessing

2x Enduring Victory

1x Will of the Naga

9x Plains

8x Island

Literally nothing with power greater than 3 with the exception of Ojutai. But I guess I don't need good cards when it seems my talent is making my opponents mulligan and have bad mana.

Two of my matches went to time when my opponent stopped my attempt at tempo'ing with crappy powered dudes but he couldn't break through my defensive creatures either, lol.

edited 22nd Mar '15 2:26:19 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Did I see you on MTG salvation? because I swear someone else had a very similar story. Regardless here's my prerelease story.

I did 2 flights. The first I went with the Ojutai. Ended up with enough playables for a decent blue/white tempoish deck splashing black for Dragonlord Silumgar... the only problem looking back was its removal was minimal and it just couldn't get there. I switched it over to U/B after a little while and it flowed much better. Still only managed 2-3 in that first flight. I might have done better had I been U/B from the beginning but I got slammed with Dash decks in like 3 of 5 rounds. They are VERY fast and VERY good. That said, they are not unbeatable at all. I know because of my second flight.

Flight 2 I decided if you can't beat them, join them, so I went Kolaghan and got what I felt was a pretty strong deck. I ran 18 lands because I have a bad history with R/B. It's not a color combo that I get along with. I don't usually like the play style and it always screws me on mana. The deck was pretty good. I had several of the cards that gave me problems in my first flight. Including: Sprinting Warbrute Reckless Imp Blood-Chin Rager Warbringer Coat with Venom Ire Shaman

There were others but those were my big ones. It was a pretty strong Red/Black deck all things considered. I even had that double strike enchantment but looking back I should have also added Magmatic Chasm as I think I had some and opted not to play them. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the deck and didn't mind not having any dragons.

That said man did my games sometimes get really close. My first opponent was a kid with a Grixis deck that contained both the new Kolaghan and the old Silumgar and was utterly terrifying to play against. Barely beat that kid. Round 2 I won game one on a blistering start but then games 2 and 3 he dropped dragons on me left and right. He was running Ojutai, had 2 Pristine Skywise, 2 Elusive Spellfist and plenty of solid tricks. I just had no solid answer for his dragons. My Flatten and a couple of other things gave me options so I wasn't helpless but in the end I needed one more mana to push the final point of damage through and it never came.

The only other game of note was my final round where my opponent was running a Silumgar based deck splashing red for 2 cards: Kolaghan's Command and War Hellkite Oh lordy did this thing prove how you beat the aggro decks. This thing traded off its multiple copies of Palace Familiar and Youthful Scholar to blunt my assaults and bury me in card advantage, exploited them for various effects and then got them back with the command. The girl using it piloted the deck beautifully. It was actually really kind of cool to watch her just absolutely dismantle my deck. She even used the main deck Mind Rot she was playing to obliterate some of my Dash action including eliminating my war brute which was kind of my MVP.

Ended up going 2-2 in that flight but didn't have a single real regret. Got 4 packs and ended up opening the following: Assault Formation Hidden Dragonslayer Sidisi, Undead Vizier

and drumroll please...

Narset Transcendent

Yeah, no real problems with this one.

Thanks to Dash the format is much faster and you'll just roll over and die if you go in thinking that this is going to be the slow, grindy format that Khans was or that Khans/Fate was. Black is really strong and Kologhan and Silumgar both benefit from it dramatically. The Silumgar are deceptive so be on guard. They are SUPER controlling. White has a lot of strong cards for the beatdown plan. Overall I enjoyed this one more than I did Khans. If I had a job right now I'd probably draft more of this format.

Yeah, I post on MTGS as well.

I guess I'm a masochist. And the constant bickering amuses me.

edited 25th Mar '15 2:25:32 PM by nightwyrm_zero

why would you do that to yourself

I do that too but honestly it's because it makes me appreciate T Vtropes more. It's so much more civil here.

There are a few exceptions, but almost every other forum I pass through online makes me appreciate TVT, in spite of our own issues. :P

Modern Masters 2 spoilers have started. Anything you're hoping/looking for?

Battle for Zendikar spoilers.

Fulminator Mage, Spellskite and Noble Hierarch are all in at rare. I don't think I'm looking for anything else.

It's really nice to see all of those staying at rare.

Looks like they're going to be throwing a lot of smaller Eldrazi cards into the set to help make casting the big guys a viable - if risky - option for drafting.

Sounds sensible enough.

I'm mainly excited about some of the new art. Shadowmage Infiltrator looks great.