Khans of Tarkir Prerelease

I managed to get to two pre-releases for Khans of Tarkir (making up for missing M15 apparently). 

Saturday
The Saturday event was in Bedford; I hadn't played at the store before, so it was interesting to go along. I picked Sultai (BGU) for my clan pack and started building a deck. I had a hard time getting a decent amount of creatures, and realised that I could switch out blue for white and I would have a better chance. I had a lot of the common enters battlefield tapped lands that were half blue, so I did play Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as my only blue card (although I never drew it in a single game, and only use blue to activate the ability on Smoke Teller to peek at some opponents morph creatures). I went 2-2 and had some fun.

Sunday
On the Sunday, I went to my usual store in St Albans, and picked Abzan (even though I had already played those colours, it was one of the other clans I had planned on playing). I opened a pretty good pool and went about building my deck. 

Creatures
[One]
1 Mardu Hateblade - This was mainly played for the deathtouch ability

[Two]
1 Ainok Bond-Kin - I had two of these on the Saturday, and they looked pretty good, just outlasting it once would make it a good blocker for a few turns. 

[Three]
1 Abzan Falconer - This drew removal pretty quickly, and for good reason as it is a great creature
1 Mardu Hordechief - This card helped a lot, I think I always got the token when I cast it (not always on turn three)
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Watcher of the Roost - I cast this as a morph one turn when my opponent had a flier. They attacked me (I was tapped out) and I unmorphed it to trade. 

[Four]
1 Unyielding Krumar
1 Longshot Squad
1 Alabaster Kirin

[Five+]
1 Wingmate Roc - Somewhat unsurprisingly, this was really good in sealed
2 Abzan Guide - This was really good as well, I gained a load of life off it one game, giving me a very healthy buffer
1 Necropolis Fiend - I think I cast this once, exiling all the cards in my graveyard, but a 4/5 flier was enough to win in a turn or two anyway. 

Spells
1 Suspension Field
1 Debilitating Injury - good in a format with morph creatures
1 Abzan Charm - I think I may have used all three abilities over the day
1 Abzan Ascendancy
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Smite the Monstrous - Started with two maindeck, but often didn't have that many targets
1 Dutiful Return
2 Throttle

Lands
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Nomad Outpost
2 Jungle Hollow
1 Scoured Barrens
1 Blossoming Sands
3 Forest
3 Swamp
6 Plains

(I think that is the correct basic land distribution, I know I played 18, and about half the deck is white). 

Sideboard
Bloodfell Caves & Mardu Charm - One of my lands already produced red, and I could add in a second and play the charm. I felt I didn't need it as I had two spells that gave a creature -4/-4, which in most cases is the same as 4 damage. Two 1/1 tokens would be nice, but I had a lot of bigger creatures that they wouldn't really matter later in the game, and I felt it was better to have good mana than adding a splash. 

Dragonscale Boon, Savage Punch, Smite the Monstrous - Extra removal themed cards if needed. I started the event with the second Smite the Monstrous main deck, but took it out as I felt I only needed the one. 

Highland Game, Longshot Squad, Shambling Attendants, Sagu Archer, Alabaster Kirin - Extra creatures if I needed them in certain matchups. 

Round 1
I lost the first game as my opponent (playing a fast Mardu deck), removed all my creatures while playing lots of their own. I won the second and third games, one to my opponent stumbling on mana a little, but both games were fairly close. 

1-0

Round 2
My opponent was playing a Sultai deck, with a lot of defensive creatures. I went up to 31 life thanks to an Abzan Guide before they blocked it with three creatures to kill it. I came close to winning in a single big turn by casting Abzan Ascendancy with about 4 or five creatures out (and I think a Abzan Falconer to give everything flying), but they countered it. 

My opponent was getting ahead of card advantage, playing Bitter Revelation, Treasure Cruise, Weave Fate and Dig Through Time, but (mostly thanks to Outlast), my creatures were big enough that they couldn't attack through. They did lay a giant Hydra (came out as an 8/8), but I had the Smite the Monstrous to turn it into 8 1/1 snakes, which was a little more manageable.  I ended up winning as my opponent ran out of cards, although I did get down to three life (from a previous 31), before stabilising (Wingmate Roc helped, token for blocking, creature for attacking and gaining a little life as I also had something with vigilance). As we were shuffling up, time was called for the round (yup, the whole game took the entire round). 

2-0

Lunch
Liz had arrived with the kids, so we wandered to a bakery to get something to eat quickly. 

Round 3
The first game was very back and forth, I think it ended when I cast a Wingmate Roc and my opponent realised he couldn't beat it. 

In the second game, I drew my 7 cards, saw one land so mulliganed. One land, mulligan. No lands, mulligan. One land in a four card hand - I'll keep it. On the draw, I not only drew into lands to cast a three drop on turn three, but I had all my colours. All the cards I had drawn were cheap ones, so I put a lot of pressure on my opponent as I wasn't sure on my chances in the long game due to the cast disadvantage. The last card I cast to give me an empty hand was a Smite the Monstrous on a newly cast Meandering Towershell (at that point my opponents only creature as I had removed any others they had cast, through removal and them blocking). 

3-0

Round 4
My opponent is playing Jeskai, and have a lot of tricks. I get a strong draw in the first game and cast something they can't deal with to win (possibly Wingmate Roc again). The second game is a lot closer, but I ultimately win. 

4-0

Round 5
Final round. First game I get off to a good start and my opponent can't catch up. They are playing an aggressive Mardu deck, but I get bigger creatures out faster. In the second game they play a Bloodsoaked Champion and one or two other creatures and get me down to a low life total thanks to removing all my creatures. I made a play mistake here by allowing them to attack with the Champion as the only creature before using a removal spell on it, so they could return in as they had attacked with a creature. Later in the game, I cast Abzan Charm on 6 life to draw two cards (and lose two life), as I needed to draw into something to help me stabilise. I didn't, so lost. The second game was a little closer, but I started losing my creatures again, took a hit from Zurgo Helmsmasher, and didn't draw anything to remove him next turn so lost. 

4-1

I won 6 packs in the end. Pretty happy with the result, considering the last time I played was the Journey into Nyx prerelease. Back when Shards of Alara was out and I was drafting a lot, I always had issues with mana, but I had more success this time around, which is good. That is probably part me having more experience and part more experience with developing multicolour sets in Wizards of the Coast. 

All in all, I think it is a fun set. I'm still not sure about morph, I have generally just blocked if they attack with one, as it forces them to unmorph it or use a trick or they lose it, meaning they're not developing their board. I'm more likely to get blown out this way, so I will see how well this strategy works to see if I need to be more cautious. 

Modern Masters Draft

As rare as it is, I was lucky enough to get to draft the Modern Masters set. By the time I got to St Albans to meet up with Liz to take over from looking after Kaleb, I had just about finished listening to the Limited Resources podcast on Modern Masters. 

Looking over the set once spoiled, I liked the look of the BG graveyard archetype, so would keep an eye out for it. 

I started off with a Cryptic Command, but then got a Murderous Redcap second, followed by a couple of red removal spells, and then some decent black removal spells. I was also able to pick up a Worm Harvest, so kept the graveyard deck in the back of my mind. I finished off the pack with a couple of leftover green cards. The second pack started with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, soon followed by another Murderous Redcap. I picked up some good Green cards and some more black cards, before finishing off the draft with the third pack for more of the same. 

I had the minimum necessary to get some good graveyard interaction (Worm Harvest, Stinkweed Imp, Moldervine Cloak, Dakmor Salvage), which was nice as a side interaction, but my deck was mostly value and removal. 

Two Drops
2 Mogg War Marshal
Sudden Shock
Warren Weirding

Three Drops
Stinkweed Imp
2 Eternal Witness
2 Rift Bolt
Moldervine Cloak
Citanul Woodreaders
Drag Down
Kodama's Reach

Four Drops
2 Murderous Redcap

Five Drops
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Worm Harvest
Warren Pilferers

Six Drops
Pardic Dragon
2 Death Rattle
Sylvan Bounty

Land included Vivid Marsh and Dakmor Salvage, with about 6 of each land type needed (Swamp, Mountain, Forest). 

First match (against Islands)
I drew the first match, just winning the second game before time was called. My opponent got Vedalken Shackles out both games, playing mono-blue artifacts... Not too much I can do in general, which is why I lost the first game, but was able to get enough damage early on, followed by just lots of small creatures so the one they stole didn't matter. 

Second Match (with tokens)
In the second match, I lost the first game but won the second one quite quickly. I did quite well in the third game, using Kiki-Jiki to make tokens of Murderous Redcap a couple of times  before finishing the game with some Pardic Dragon tokens. 

Third Match (value)
In the final match, my opponent was playing Red/Black Goblins, and we both got out a lot of tokens, before I eventually wore down his side to win. 

I gained quite a bit of card advantage. This was my start:
Turn 2: Mogg War Marshal (including token)
Turn 3: Don't pay echo cost (get another token), cast Kodama's Reach
Turn 4: Warren Pilferers, returning Mogg War Marshal (attacking with haste)

A couple of turns later, having killed the Mogg War Marshal again and the Warren Pilferers, I cast Eternal Witness to get back the Warren Pilferers, which I used the next turn to get back the Mogg War Marshal again. 

In the second game, he got out two Mad Auntie's early followed by a couple of goblins and I couldn't get enough of a defence up so lost. 

The final game went to the final turns, and my opponent killed all my remaining creatures when I had the on 2 life. Stuck on 4 mana with a couple of cards I couldn't cast in hand, I lucked into drawing a second Forest that I needed to cast Eternal Witness... returning a Murderous Redcap, which I could play next turn (turn 4 of final turns) to do the final 2 damage. 

All in all, it was a fun format. It would be nice to be able to draft it again, I may be able to get one more chance, but I doubt I'll get many, so am happy to have had the opportunity at least the once. 

Drafting Avacyn Restored

Me and Liz went along to Hemel to do a draft of Avacyn Restored last night; probably the last time we'll be able to go for a little while. This would be the second time to draft the set, so we had a bit of an idea about what some of the cards did. 

Dark Ascension draft

I've not been able to draft as much as I would have liked recently, so was happy that me and Liz had a spare evening to go along to Hemel yesterday. Getting ready, we wondered how many times we had actually drafted the set, figuring it had only been once, maybe twice. I had gone to the pre-release so was one time up, but it was still a lot less than I would have liked. 


Sitting down, we opened the Dark Ascension pack and I had a look through, before deciding that, as I hadn't played the set much (and won't have much of a chance to soon), I would go for a fun deck as opposed to a super powerful one, and went with Diregraf Captain, with the intention to get a fun Zombie deck. 

Dark Ascension pre-release

Bit late for this posting now, but I've been busy. 


Went to the Dark Ascension pre-release in St Albans the other weekend - it was on a Sunday (so they had already run two the previous two days). I had donated some basic land cards as there was a message on the forum saying they were low and couldn't get hold of any land stations. Luckily I had a box of spare lands that I sent along to be used over the weekend. 


I got there a bit early and we waited around until the start, lining up to get the boosters and then we all opened them at the same time (I got mine towards the end of the line so didn't have to wait as long as others). 

Innistrad First Picks

After the last draft I did, I got one booster pack as a prize, and didn't have enough time to look through it last night, so will do so now. 


Interestingly, there are no white cards in the pack, but the other colours are fairly well represented. The top 4 cards are Unburial Rites, Rage Thrower, Mirror-Mad Phantasm and Mayor of Avabruck // Howlpack Alpha. 

Drafting the Laboratory Maniac deck

I did another draft last night and, while I didn't do well with blue last time, ended up playing blue again. I had been reading about an archetype where you mill yourself and make many spider tokens over and over again, but didn't want to go into the draft looking to play the deck, and just went with what I saw. As it turned out, I ended up going with a deck very similar anyway. 


When I opened the pack, the first card I picked was Skaab Ruinator. Massive creature, evasion; generally a great bomb. Meant I was going to be in blue again, but I had a win condition, whereas last time I just had ways to delay my inevitable defeat. It also meant I would have to be looking into playing cards that filled my graveyard, so kept that in mind. I can't remember what my next pick or two were, it might have been a Victim of Night. But my pick either 3 or 4 was Laboratory Maniac, which looked so fun I took it and decided to build my deck around it...

Innistrad draft

I got around to going to another Innistrad draft last night. I think the deck I drafted was very good, and I was doing well, but lost some close games in the finals. But it was fun to play regardless. 


My first pick was a Manor Gargoyle, passing Tribute to Hunger and Geistflame. The Tribute came round again so I took it late, which was handy as I had been taking a lot of black that pack. I had a few green cards and an Unburial Rites, so was looking into playing black with green/white as a splash. In the next few packs, I got more black cards and a few good green cards, but not too many white cards. I did also open a Gavony Township, so was thinking so splashing both green and white, even if only slightly, and looked for mana fixing some more. 

Last M12 draft - Winston Star

At Hemel last night was probably the last M12 draft I'll be doing. As there was only 5 of us, we did a different format than usual. We did a Winston Draft between the 5 players, planning to play the Star Format as there was 5 of us. 


I started off the draft, with nothing particularly interesting in either pile, but opted to take a Plummet in the last pile as it is somewhat alright (and going to have some targets with multiple opponents) as I didn't want to risk getting something worse. In hindsight, I should have taken the card off the top as it was Sorin's Vengeance which the person after me took. 


When the pick came round to me again, the first pile hadn't been taken and now had about 6 cards, so I took it as there were a few slightly alright cards.