M11 Prerelease

On Saturday I participated in our local preview tournament. I was looking forward to it. I thought that I could open something nice.

In my first booster I opened a green leyline what a surprise. I continued in opening and got Elvish Archdruid. Nice card but definitely not for sealed deck. Third booster did not bring anything better. In the fourth one I opened to my surprise Angelic Arbiter. Nice card but well with so many doom blades, assassinates removal that card is not such a bomb. In the last two boosters I opened Brittle Effigy and Mystifying Maze^_^. I was happy to get those.

I went through my cards and I liked black, blue and red. White wasn't that bad either as I had three removal in it and flyers + arbiter. But even that did not make me want to play it. I chose to play blue and black. I got some aether adepts, air servant, phantom beast, some counter spells and preordain, foresee and even jace's card draw.

In round one I played against bw deck. With my blue spells I was slowing down my opponent till the point I could play something dangerous myself. I wasn't lucky in drawing a swamp card though so I died when I ran out of blue spells. In game two the same fate was awaiting my opponent. It was a sad game. In the third game we had lots of fun with my Air Servant. I played him for the first time expecting it to be killed. It got killed, so I played gravedigger and taking it back to my hand. My opponent played Mind Rot though. I couldn't counter that and discarded that card once again. My opponent played Rise from the grave and reanimated my poor Servant. The card on my hand was Aether Adept. So after my opponent let me play I played it targeting once again my Servant. I got it back and played it. With this card in play I killed my opponent.

In round 2 I played against quite fast BR aggro. I had to deal with Goblin Balloon Brigade, Bloodthorne Vampire + Reassembling Skeleton and 3/3 Defender that can fly and lose defender. That was too much for my blue spells. I decided to switch to red. I knew that my opponent played cards like Rotting Legion and Fire Servant which are much slower than mine. My curve ends with 4 if I won't count Lava Axe and Fireballs.
I put that in and beat my opponent so fast that he did not even know what to do. I have to admit that I was unfair with Brittle Effigy. This removal held my opponent at bay for some time and that's all I needed. Game 3 was even faster.

For round three I was paired against some person having 2:0 as well. Nothing to be surprised about...but he looked pretty arrogant and the look in his eyes was pretty uncomfortable and he was looking at me in disbelief. Surprised that a girl can have 2:0? No matter what we started playing. On turn one I had to show him my hand. He discarded Volcanic Strength as that was the only non creature, nonland card. He played Cudgel Troll later and Nightwing Shade I played Prodigal Pyromancer hoping to be able to kill both creatures with my Fireball later. He got me under 10 life but he tapped out eventually to play something. I played fireball targeting his two creatures dealing 2 damages two each. Pyromancer dealt the last damage to the this-turn-not-regenerating Troll. After this I finally started attacking.
The second game was similar. Early he played Duress. I showed him my opening hand - Pyroclasm, Fireball, Doomblade and some lands. He discarded Fireball. I did not play anything till he played Cudgel Troll. On the following turn he played Howling Banshee. I killed his Troll then and turn later I killed the banshee as well. After that it was my turn to be attacking with Vulshock Berserker.

Round four was quick. I was paired down as I already played with the rest of the people (and I was the only one having 3:0). I mulled to 5 having only one land and died as I couldn't draw more lands. In game two I got stuck at two lands and couldn't draw more. Not funny. My secondary points went down. Now my "fate" was in Lukas' and Kuba's hands. Lukas winning the match would mean 3rd place for me, Kuba winning would mean me being first. I had more faith in Lukas but in the end it was him who lost the last game and I came up first.

BR

2x Quag Sickness
1x Doom Blade
1x Howling Banshee
1x Mind Rot
1x Bog Raiders
1x Barony Vampire
1x Gravedigger
1x Reassembling Skeleton
1x Liliana's Specter
2x Prodigal Pyromancer
1x Goblin Piker
1x Goblin Balloon Brigade
1x Vulshok Berserker
1x Fiery Hellhound
1x Pyroclasm
1x Chandra's Outrage
1x Act of Treason
1x Fireball
1x Lava Axe
1x Volcanic Strength
1x Brittle Effigy
1x Mystifying Maze