Avacyn Restored Prerelease

I started writing an article about Avacyn Restored and limited but I was unable to finish it as I had so much work because of the prerelease and school. So my first post about Avacyn Restored will be from the tournament.

We had 40 people who registered and only one person from those registered couldn't come. We started the tournament with 39 people or at least that's what I and reporter thought.

After I managed to tell people to sit down and calm down I distributed boosters, checklists and the achievement cards. The 'High-five someone who controls a legendary peranent' was soon the most favorite achievement. Those who high-fived got the chance to get this achievement because of Sigarda - that's also a card I opened. Lukas Sevcik was the one who received my pool.

When I got my pool I was convinced that the upcoming 6 rounds will be a torture. It seems that the set is proaggro and that there's not so many tricks and funny cards to play. The Soulbond mechanic is nice for sure...but hey why does it seem to me that Naya Humans is the best you can get?

I went through my cards and saw few flyers in white and the 'hexproof' and 'ophidian' humans. But when I put that together I got 10 cards and no bomb in it. So I continued going through black and red. Black had twice Death Wind, Soul Cage and Maalfeld Twins but that wasn't convincing. Red on the other hand had Havengul Vampire, Thunderbolt and some lancers. Nothing awesome but 5 humans and soulbond abilities. In green I had Craterhoof Behemoth and Champion of Lambholt. Another creature with similar ability was Howlgeist. I hoped for some borderland rangers and some cheap creatures like Timberland Guide. There was nothing that would help me look for and ramp for (my mythic) but Timberland Guide was good anyway, especially with Champion of Lambhold. In artifacts I got Moonsilver Spear and I was ready to play it even though I still think that there could be better cards than that.

Round 1
In round one I was surprised by Taskmaster on T3 and was convinced that this 4/3 flyer would kil me. But I top decked Moonsilver Spear and actually had a creature I could equip it to. So I attacked died, but produced a 4/4 Angel. Yay, my first achievement. I continued attacking and kept always an angel and some other blocker so I wouldn't die. In the second game I had to deal with Lifelink 2/4 angel and Slayer's Stronghold. My creatures except few weren't big enough to be able to damage race 4/4 Lifelink creature. In the end though I was able to win (my moonsilver spear was destroyed).

Round 2
White/Red humans with black this time. In the first game it was Moonsilver Spear that shined as my opponent did not have an answer to that main deck and messed up a part of the game where he could get two extra rounds to be able to deal with the equipment. In the second game I had to deal with lifelink. But still I got Champion of Lambhold early and I still had hand full of creatures. So it was a quick game. I realized that my deck does not like lifelink at all. One creature with power 2 and lifelink was a limit. Three creatures with lifelink, that was way too much.

Round 3
Petr Kaminek and his UW flyers, 3/1 unblockable, some card draw, bounce and white decree (um entreat the angels I mean). Lifelink once again and I was really fed up with that. In the second game what really ruined my game was Stolen Goods. The card hit Havengul Vampire. The vampire became too big for my creatures and I couldn't deal with it.

Round 4
Black/Red were the colors. Early Exterminator that I couldn't block with my lovely recluse. The vampire was big enough to kill any creature I would play so I couldn't do much with that. One of my games was really fast though. One pair of creatures dealt some damage as they were quite small, but then they managed to hit for 8 and the turn for 8 as well as I had twice Joint Assault in my hand. I was hoping that my opponent wouldn't expect that (I mulled to fived in that game). In the last game my opponent kept a hand with 2 black sources and no red one. He was unable to play anything and was beaten by my creatures.
During this round the last seal on Helvault was broken.

Round 5
UWR. It was nice to see blue once again. This was the first player that played 1/4 and 0/4 creatures against me. I was quite taken aback and my litlle creatures could just watch the wall. When I finally managed to get enough power to beat through I was shown Peel From Reality. Anyway I was drawing lands (and cards that were put on top of my library) all the time and I was beginning to feel the possibility of me playing my mythic rare - Craterhoof Behemoth. After drawing seven lands straight my opponent finally tapped out and I played this big creature and attacking for 29. It did not kill him that turn, but few turns later bounced Howlgeist did the job. Actually he needed a bit of help from Timberland Guide so I would deal remaining 5 damage instead of 4.

Round 6
This was more or less mirror. He played Naya humans and had Bonfire of the Damned which swept the bord on T3 or so. My little creatures were dead I had no other creature to which I could equip Moonsilver Spear. In the second game we played creatures and more creatures, dealing some damage and forcing opponent to block but in the end I miscalculated (twice) and lost (due to missed trigger and whatnot). As there was no 6:0 record and I was the only one playing against all those who ended up 1,2 and 3 I could have won the whole event.^_^. Everyone wanted something from me and was asking me questions and I couldn't concentrate on the game - and this kind of game is hard for me even if I actually can concentrate. I can't play a creature deck against another heavy creature deck, I just get lost.

After last table finished playing I said to the winner that he can and should open the Helvault so we can share what's inside. He opened it and took out oversized legendary creature cards, Angel/Demon tokens and dice. I then gave out the prized and let everyone take something from the vault.

In overall the tournament was a success. We had a full store, people were happy, calm and enjoying themselves. The games I played were friendly and I'm thankful for that as I have to admit ... I don't like Avacyn Restored. It's yet another ISD. Afterall it wasn't so bad for me but still I don't like the format.

RG aggro

2 Timberland Guide
1 Druid's Familiar
1 Gloomwidow
2 Hanweir Lancer
1 Somberwald Vigilante
2 Joint Assault
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Thunderbolt
1 Havengul Vampire
1 Moonsilver Spear
1 Wandering Wolf
2 Howlgeist
1 Diregraf Escort
1 Stonewright
1 Nightshade Peddler
1 Nettle Swine
1 Riot Ringleader
1 Craterhoof Behemoth

(I'll add some photos when I download them)

I broke one of the seals on our Helvault. All my achievements I managed were:

• Destroy a Demon an opponent controls
  
• Put an Angel or Demon creature token on to the battlefield
  
• Control three or more creatures with flying (yay 4/4 tokens^^)
  
• High-five someone who controls a legendary permanent (Sigarda)
  
• Cast a mythic rare card (I thought I wouldn't be able to achieve this, but well 29 damage via it was quite impressive)
  
• Win a match
  
• Quote the flavor text of a card while playing it ('So the vampires like hot blood, do they? Let's see how they handle ours.')
  
• Force an opponent to sacrifice a creature
  
• Control three or more humans
  
• Control four or more paired creatures using soulbond - sometimes I did not even have any targets left!
  
• Attack with five or more creatures in one turn - yay my army of 1/1 creatures attacking! (unblockable from the Champion)

But to be honest my biggest achievemet of the day was - staying awake. Now I need to tidy up and clean the store...*yawn*. Next madness begins in 10 hours.

Thanks for reading!