Place: Mythic Games, Downtown Santa Cruz
Event: Journey Into Nyx Pre-release
Objective: Crush the dreams of all my opponents; get packs
What an event without a good tailgate?
Top of the parking garage nearby, we grilled hot dogs, ate donuts and drank PBRs. Brain food for the upcoming challenge. Many thanks to Ryan and Spencer for setting it up.
Looking at all the promo cards, I decided to choose white for this:
It reminded me of the common Seraph of Dawn from Innistrad, which was a 2/4 flyer with lifelink and was first-pickable in draft. This one has heroic? It's good. And it's only 4 CC.
Cracking the pre-release box, the 6 packs, die and artifact promo were cool. There was an achievement card where you put stickers on it after each round. Then turned it in for another sticker that would add some text to the artifact promo. That's why the promo has a large empty space on it. Huh? I would have preferred just another promo card, like they did in past pre-releases, but whatever. I guess people love their stickers.
Here are the highlights from my pool. Obviously, picked the white box means you're playing white as one of your colors.
Went red white with some burn and fast creatures. Prophetic Flamespeaker was good. Splashed black for Underworld Cerberus. He was a beating whenever I played him. Launch The Fleet was an all-star. Making attacking dudes out of nowhere surprised a lot of players. I also liked Sightless Brawler and Oreskos Swiftclaw. Beats are beats.
Round one:
Natalie was a new player who came along with some friends to play. She admitted it was her first tournament. But I think pre-releases are where to start. Everyone's stoked about new cards. She was playing GB and had big Hydras. I helped her with some of the cards and plays and then realized we were going to time. The match ended in a draw, but I was glad to help out a new player.
Round two:
Greg Smith... we meet again, sir! He was playing BUG with Prophet of Kruphix and King Macarena. We split the first two games and then my Cerberus ability negated his Nyx Spider graveyard shenanigans.
Round three:
Evan was playing RUG with big dudes and the Artisan of Forms. He copied my Cerberus, which was awkward game one. Then I got stuck on W facing many dudes and a Rouse The Mob, giving them all +2/0 and trample. Ouch.
Round four:
Khoa played UW with flyers, bounce and counter spells. Talk about annoying! I saw Sphinx and Cranes, but my fast beats stood tough and won in 3.
Round five:
Duncan (concede)
Unfortunately, I had to go after round 4 - there was a camp out at New Brighton beach waiting for me. S'mores, burgers and many beers were in my future. I conceded to my round five opponent, who was very stoked since he said he never won anything at a Magic tourney before.
Spencer, Ryan, yours truly, Cartmill and Brian. Cartmill nailed the pre-release look for the day.
Mythic Games was nice enough to run many pre-releases all weekend and the 6pm Sunday one fit my schedule. So here we go again... this time black (nope, they were all out)... okay then, green!
I saw players have fun with the black promo since it was easy to drop many enchantments with it in play. -1/-1 to opponents creatures is really good. But I got the hydra, so I was determined to drop the big beats. Big George said it was good and Conor agreed. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!
The green was Eidolon of Blossoms, 2 Scorps, 2 Spider Ladies (see below), Swarm Giant, Ravenous Big Head Doggie and Nemesis. The white was Wingsteed, Skyguard, and tricks (Launch, Reap, Ajani's Presence). GW it is! Also a Helm to get the big guys in.
Round one:
Mateo was nice kid and a Harbor High senior - a fellow alumni! He said he planned to go to college up in Seattle, which I said was a great town. And closer to Wizards! I'm such a nerd. He played WUB with Master of Waves, but my scorps held him back and my Helmed Giant got in there both games.
Round two:
Catalin was also a new player and was very nice. But her cards didn't do much for her and I won both games easily. Still, I tried to be encouraging and went over her deck afterwards.
Round three:
Daniel was another GW player and he had red too. My Hydra got to 16/16 and stomped him first game. Then his big guys stomped me in the second. Last game was tight, but he drew gas to my lands. Close one!
Round four:
Richard and I were both 2-1 and a 3-1 record won 5 packs. Richard offered to split with the winner of the round getting the extra pack. Deal! My goal for playing today was to have some packs for Tuesday's draft. This would make that happen. He ended up beating me in a close first game and I said "No mas". It was late and I was tired.
Pre-release observations:
Spider Lady was better than I thought. Block a dude, pay 2 mana and get a spider... an enchantment spider. This triggers all the constellation cards. It does a lot.
So cheap... I mean really cheap. Five mana for instance gets you 5 extra 1/1 attackers. Do they block your main dudes or the extra ones? I got to play with this card in both deck this weekend and never was disappointed.
A surprisingly strong card. The 4 toughness is very relevant and the monstrosity factor makes it great. Hard to kill and it doesn't tap to attack. And it looks like Greg's dog.
A fun weekend of Magic with new cards. I'll be back next week for the release events too. I will stick with Nyx!
