I play Magic the Gathering. Love it like there’s no tomorrow. Addison, our 7 year old REALLY wants to play, but the rules vs her attention span battle tends to get in the way. She used to think I was doing magic tricks. Adorable.
Not so adorable was my 3-1-0 record at the prerelease Pastimes, though – check out the best part of my pool:
Evasion and bigness gets you there
Before the tournament, each player had to pick a color preference for the night. Each color had a slick box with a seeded pack of cards from (or compatible with) their chosen color, a promo card, a life counter, and 5 Theros Boosters. I chose white. There was more stuff, but I don’t got all day, I came to gloat. Check the stuff out here.
Not pictured is this guy here, who I dropped after the tournament for a few bucks – ultimately, I prefer to play for free if I can help it –
When I lay out a sealed pool, I sort by color first, then count creatures and removal to see what colors I have the best resources in. This pool was sweet, and the 4x Wingsteed Riders and 3x Leafcrown Dryads got me looking hard for GW playables. 2x Heliod’s Emissary and the Celestial Archon promo really did seal the deal for me. The only real problem I saw was a lack of removal. I had a Divine Verdict, so that was good. Otherwise, I had to rely on playing solid and using combat tricks and heroic triggers to get there.
Since the removal suite in this set is slow and expensive, that made the bestow mechanic and auras in general very playable. And turning a 3-drop 2/2 flyer into a 5/5 flyer attacking on turn 4 is a great feeling. The Wingsteed Riders and Leafcrown Dryads were amazing together – They enabled me to play reasonably fast and aggressive, which is awesome in a slower format that’s trying to get you to hit the big drops later in the game.
Rounds 1 and 2 weren’t too memorable, but round 3 I met my match in a mirror. My opponent had a very similar GW deck and it was a real nail-biter. At the end of game 3, I had him down to 1 with a big, evasive team. Still had a flyer behind for a chump block if he was able to do anything. I had inevitability, 11 life left, and not a care in the world. Then he bestowed Heliod’s Emissary onto his own Wingsteed Rider, making him a 6/6, cracked back with his whole team, the Emissary tapped my blocker, and he 11’d me. Well done.
Round 4 was lovely, since my brain was fading, and it was like 4am. My opponent was playing black, drew no gas and I slaughtered him. Good times.
So… wrap-up sentences are weird… Catch you guys tomorrow!