My Magic Origins Prereleases

New set is coming out this Friday. It is the last 'Core Set' as we know it but it underwent quite a lot of changes anyway.

It has a really nice flavor, it tells us about the 5 planeswalkers' pasts (Jace, Liliana, Chandra, Gideon and Nissa) and that is why we have there double faced Planeswalker cards (one side is actually a creature - before the spark - and the other side is a planeswalker). There are many reprints that actually stand out pretty much. Each planeswalker comes from a different plane and that is why there are cards from those five planes which is quite a unique thing. So you have there cards from Innistrad block alongside cards from Theros block etc. That certainly felt strange during the prereleases I participated in. Also with Magic Origins prerelease/release there will no longer be a Duels of the Planeswalkers game but rather a Magic Duels 'magic client'. It will be a free to play game in which the players will get the chance to unlock everything by just playing. Each few months there will be an update to the existing software containing new set or other content. (unlike a new game being released). The iOS version is out for few days already so you can check it out. But it is only supported by newer models of iphone and ipad.

The set itself seems pretty aggressive to me and from the first experience looks pretty boring. But how boring the set is we will find out when the first drafts will start. After seeing the spoiler I came to the conclusion that I want to pick the white pack. I wasn't the only one who thought of that so I had to pick a different color (already preregistered blue/black). So I went with Green, later picked Black and Blue.

Green-White aggro seemed as the best colors to play and that was mostly what I was encountering it was either GW or RW aggro decks. At least two of the three prereleases GW decks were the winning decks. I played Boros, UR and UR. In all those cases the deck was built around the Thopter generating creatures. The most powerful creature though in my deck was Sigiled Starfish. That card sent 7 land cards in average to the bottom of my library. Without this card I guess I wouldn't be able to end up in the finals. Thopter creating creatures, Whirler Rogues, Thopter Spy Network (got three of those, but played only 2) and Angel's Tomb were capable of pulling off a victory.

After the first two prereleases in which I terribly failed I figured out that without being super aggressive I won't be able to win even if I'll be playing a slow deck (that was my case). When I arrived to the store I was actually looking forward to the prerelease but all those people that came to me telling me how many Nissa's they have and how many people they beat just ruined my day. After opening my pool I was even more saddened because it did not seem as a very playable pool at a first glance. Maybe I expected a higher power level but still I had almost no low cost creatures and the creatures I got usually had a pump effect written on them and cost 4 or more mana. With no creatures in play...that simply couldn't work. I tried to build a deck but I knew this would fail. There wasn't much evasion, no Renown and no good curve. So I got beaten up pretty hard in round 1 and in round 2 as well and I always had to face Nissa. At that time I did not really care about planeswalkers but in the second prerelease I found out that the Walker cards stand out a lot no matter what their abilities is. It's not like they would die to a single attack. So I dropped and hoped for a better tomorrow.

The day after did not start that well either but the deck seemed way better than before and I found out that the only creatures I'm willing to play are those Thopter generating creatures. I had to accept the fact that the format is fast and the creatures are mostly inefficient and not really doing much excepting getting bigger. So in the last prerelease I wanted to play a deck that I'd like at least a bit (UR Thopters). I took a blue pack. In my first pack I opened Thopter Spy Network so I was glad, in the second one I got Liliana so I was even more happy (but I knew I wouldn't play Lili at the prerelease), in the third one I got Thopter Spy Network and so on... I got three Thopter Spy Networks but ended up playing two. I noticed Angel's Tomb so I added that to my deck as well and then I just picked all the creatures or spells that seemed playable (yes, even that horrible sorcery 'bolt' costing 4 mana) and Sigiled Starfish was an auto-include. That card is actually what won me most of the games because without being able to play a creature per turn I would simply die. Since my deck was capable to lose to anything bigger than 2/2 (a 2/3 was a problem and a 4/4 was a huuuge problem) I just had to deal as much damage as I could with my flying 1/1 Thopters and I just had to chump block with anything that did not have flying. Sometimes my opponents had flyers too, that's when Whirler Rogue's ability came handy. My biggest enemy was Somberwald Alpha though (if I don't cound planeswalkers in general). That creatures was a problem (or anything with Trample). And I had facepalm myself about 5 times for playing Thopter Spy Network post-combat!

The deck that got me in the finals was...

2 Thopter Spy Network
2 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
2 Sigiled Starfish
2 Whirler Rogue
1 Angel's Tomb
1 Throwing Knife
2 Scrapskin Drake
1 Subterranean Scout
2 Dragon Fodder
1 Fiery Impulse
2 Lightning Javelin
1 Firefiend Elemental
1 Boggart Brute
1 Ringwarden Owl
2 Claustrophobia
some mountains
more islands

The deck itself wasn't that much fun, but seeing my opponents face as they realized that Angel's Tomb and Thopter Spy Network on the table might be a problem was priceless. I even had 12+ thopters in play in some games^_^. (unfortunately no photo).