The usual gang of suspects showed up at the 11am Saturday prerelease at Mythic. The buzz in the room was all about the Expeditions. Wizards had inserted new art, foil promo lands in BFZ and the blue ones were already selling for over $300. Here's the list: Expedition webpage.
I sat across from Russell and said "Let's switch!" and grabbed his prerelease box. "No way, dude!" and he grabbed it back. Then he opened this:
These did not excite me because the rest of my blue was weak. The Cinder Glade promo was nice and could help a RG deck. What really stood out was my red and black spells however. Check out these babies:
Now we are talking. Filled in with 13 creatures, I was hoping to remove any obstacles to victory. Since you are here, let's go through the games:
First round vs. Taddeo, a nice kid who was rolling RW.
I mulled to 5 and then got stuck on 4 lands. Ugh. He curved out into a few dudes and then used Rolling Thunder to burn my small guys. I came back with a Malakir Familiar (2/1 deathtouch flyer), which stalled the board a bit. Then a Sludge Crawler and Dom Drone came out, followed by a Skitterskin next turn. Those Devoid guys play well together, don't they? He made a bad attack into my deathtoucher (forgot it had it?) and I finished him off. Game two, I started off slow again and he got out a Hero of Goma Fada, but said his mom was coming and he had to go. Okay, no problem... whew!
Second round vs. Brian, but I didn't write down what he was playing.
Not many notes on this one, but I won both games and wrote "7 mana burn spell EXCELLENT" on the scorepad. Previously, I had compared Serpentine Spike poorly to the old Ravnica spell "Hex" because it only targeted 3 creatures. That was then and this is now. Three targets are still good.
Third round vs. Brendan, who said he liked my tourney blog reports. Hey Brendan!
He was rocking UB with counters (Spell Shrivel) and bounce (Murk Strider). The first game was close (lives 4 to 5), but he got there. He was playing the ingest/processor game very keenly, getting maximum value off of creatures like Wasteland Strangler (-3/-3 ouch). Game two, I got him to 8 life but then he bounced and/or killed my dudes and finished me off.
2-1 was the record and minimum score 3-2 got prizes (a draft set). I liked my deck with all its removal and thought I could get there.
Round 4 vs. Matthew, who was quiet but polite, piloting BW.
He had great white creatures like the Emeria Shepard angel, who brings back cards from the graveyard. He also played a Hero of GF and the lifelink ally (Lantern Scout). My Serpentine Spike took all three of them out. Man, that felt dirty. Another close one game 2, back and forth, but my removal was too much.
Coolio, in the packs! Last round to see how many.
Next up was my old nemesis, Eric, who I have played many times. He a nice guy, but always seems to squeak out close ones against me. He was on WUB and played a new card I had not seen before...
He took two of my mountains and I lost since my removal just couldn't deal with a 5/8 brute. Oof! Game two started better for me and we both had dudes on the board. He broke it open with this play: Rush of Ice my guy and awaken a land. Next turn, play Halimar Tidecaller, return the Rush card and play it again. I could not beat the flying lands and that tempo! Good job, Eric!
Three packs it was, which is enough to draft the set next week. Jeff was the 5-0 winner and I asked him for his take:
(My deck) was a WB removal heavy deck. The gameplan was basically to kill all their creatures so mine could take over and getting value off my many awaken cards, which were excellent for me all day. The all stars were Planar Outburst, Gideon, and Drana. Another card that played extremely well was Grip of Desolation. Sick plays:
- awakening with Encircling Fissure, then awakening with planar outburst the following turn leaving my opponent with nothing and me with 2 creatures
- exiling Russ' Ruin Processor and a land with Grip of Desolation at the end of the turn he cast it, then on my turn casting Ulamog's Despoiler and being able to use those two exiled cards to put 4 +1/+1 counters on it
- casting Gideon
Are Conor and Ryan unimpressed by Eldrazi or trying to remember how much time is left on their meters?
