Ixalan Prerelease

The prerelease weekend I was about to go see my friend Lowman02 in Frankfurt but unfortunately it didn't work out because he was needed elsewhere and thus I stayed in Prague. My previous two weeks were rather nightmarish for me and the last one was even worse because I felt sick all the time and couldn't eat. Depression hit hard and when I learned that I won't be able to spend few days with Lowman02, all the remaining energy I had till that time just vanished. I spent two days in bed practically not doing much except for playing some Magic on MODO but even that was rather depressing. I had no will to win the games I played. I had a lot of work to do and it would have been nice if I could use my days off for it, but I couldn't find the will to do so. During one of the days I realized that I could review the new Planeswalker decks from Ixalan (which was one of the things I was supposed to do). So I relaunched Magic Online so I could access the free trial. I picked Huatli's deck and waited for a game. I faced Jace's deck and got totally crushed by 5 power Merfolk. I played few more games and fell in love with those Green Merfolk, Dinosaurs not that much. I recorded few videos and wrote the review. I successfully killed some time with this. When wondering how to make the Huatli deck better because I wanted to talk about that in my video review I checked the Ixalan Spoiler and found out that there are actually good Dinosaurs in red. The best would be to play Green-Red Dinosaurs with possible White splash. I recorded the video review and then I realized that while doing this I got interested in seeing how Ixalan actually looks like.

Dinosaurs do not stand a chance against Merfolk, their synergy and their bombs.

Our original plan with Lowman was to attend the prerelease event in JK-store, since I wasn't going to Germany I wouldn't participate in the prerelease there but I could still go to one of ours. Since I still felt pretty depressed I asked another player for a game of EDH. Earlier that day I brought competitive Breya Reanimator to the table which wasn't a good idea so I put together some Sidisi, Brood Tyrant list out of cards I had with the addition of Craterhoof Behemoth that I had to buy. I cut the combo from the deck and wondered if the deck can work. The deck worked fine, the pilot though managed to throw away most the lost games. I faced a mono white planeswalker deck with Djeru, With Eyes Open which was the worst combination I could ever face - mono white running planeswalkers. This deck totally cracked me up. It was designed well, a nice working deck but it was a reminder of all what I hate in Magic and wondered if a set full of dinosaurs, white vampires, pirates and green merfolk wouldn't have the same effect on me. See, I don't usually care about Magic story since I'm more interested in mechanics of the game but there are certain limits to something I can withstand lore-wise. I seriously hate the idea of the four tribes I mentioned. With doubts and still with the terrible feeling about Planeswalkers ruining my day, I went to sleep.

This reminded me of Golden Axe...

In the morning I got up wondering if I should eat something since I didn't eat much in the past two weeks. I was weak. I went to the local game store and on my way there I bought a sandwich that I ate and didn't immediately become sick which was a good sign. When I came to the store I met few players with whom we talked a bit about Ixalan and then it was time to find our seating.

After some announcements we were allowed to open our packs and build decks. When I was opening mine I noticed that I opened 3 black rares which all were very good (one questionable) so it was clear that I wanted to play black. I ended up with black-white Vampire deck because it seemed to do something other than swinging and contained 2 really good rares - Ruin Raider and Dire Fleet Ravager. Here's the Vampire deck I sleeved. I wasn't really sure if it could deal with Dinosaurs.

It did not even come to my mind that I could be playing a Vampire tribal deck! And here I was top8ing with Vampires!

Since I had more than 20 minutes till the end of deckbuilding after I sleeved my deck I went through the rest of my pool and produced another deck. This time I produced what I don't like - Naya Dinosaurs. The deck didn't seem that bad either though.

Round 1
I played against Naya Dinosaurs. In the first game I managed to curve out and finish the game before I'd face too many big Dinosaurs.

In game two my opponent didn't miss a land drop and from turn 5 he was landing very big angry dinosaurs that were quite problematic for my deck that was stuck at 4 lands and couldn't draw a fifth one which I also needed to play removal or my 5-mana bombs. My opponent went down to 3 but then unfortunately for me played a Green Avatar that totally stopped me in my advance. All I needed was a removal that I had 3 copies of in my deck post board or a flyer. I didn't draw either and when my opponent was up at 16 I lost the game. In game three everything went fine till I started drawing just lands. When I started to put up some resistence my opponent facepalmed himself, asked me for my life total - 4 - and played Unfriendly Fire killing me.

Round 2
Next round I encountered a Grixis deck. The deck featured fast and aggressive Pirates with few Dinosaurs and 5/5 Trample Haste at top of its curve. I was able to go wide and win the damage race (since also some of my creatures have Lifelink). In game two I was unable to do anything and I thought I'd terribly die to all the aggressive creatures. My opponent got flooded though and I managed to get to five mana where I started to play my 5-drops. One was crucial because it was pumping my lifelink Vampires that started to gain me life (I had 5 life when I played this) and it was up to my opponent to either trade or just let the damage through. At first he took some damage but later started blocking unable to draw something that could block power 3 and 4 creatures and survive it.

Round 3
I played against a player that I know is a good player that plays primarily singleton formats. I wondered what he was on. He was on UB Pirates as I suspected after facing a 1/2 Flying Pirate. He produced 5 Islands and not much else - some creatures I didn't really care about. While my opponent was color screwed I was drawing cards with Ruin Raider which cost me quite some life which I regained fast with my 1/1 Lifelink pumped tokens. I won a bit later. In game two I managed to draw my 2-drops and won relatively fast.

After this we played few games of Legacy - Miracles vs Death and Taxes which was very enjoyable.

Round 4
I played against Naya Dinosaurs. The deck was obviously slow and didn't feature too many low curve creatures. Even Looming Altisaur could be considered a low curve creature in that deck. My opponent though had some creatures discounting Dinosaur spells which suggested the deck would probably be full of huge creatures. My opponent sat behind 4 walls and played the Enchantment that turns into Gaea's Cradle (missed, which was a relieve). It flipped and I wasn't really looking forward to what would jump at me with all that mana available. I faced then Belligerent Brontodon and a 6/6 Trample Dinosaur. I terribly lost.

In the following game I boarded in everything I could to deal with big creatures. I had 2 copies of Skittering Heartstopper that I didn't particularly like but they could get the job done and also 1 copy of Legion's Judgment that was good against any creature in the deck as it seemed. I played some creatures and dealt some damage before I was staring at those awesome walls yet again. When I finally drew something that could fly my opponent played Shining Aerosaur that unfortunately wouldn't trade with my creature and avoided Legion's Judgment that I had in my hand. Things didn't look good for me. For a while the Aerosaur was dealing some damage. When I finally drew a removal my opponent played Bellowing Aegisaur that I couldn't let stay in play. So instead I killed this creature. Some time later I finally drew an answer to 3/4 Aerosaur and hoped my answer would get the chance to do some job - Deathless Ancient. My draw was good but my opponent produced Belligerent Brontodon and attacked with everything. I wasn't particularly happy about 0/3 and 2/4 creatures running at me while my creatures were at best 2/2. I blocked the Aerosaur with my 4/4 Flyer and tried to trade with as many 0/3 as I could. I went down to 2 life and didn't feel particularly favored at that moment. I was still clutching the 4 power and more removal in my hand so I destroyed the Brontodon and hoped for a miracle. I drew a Vampire which was a third Vampire. I had to chump in the following attack but during that time I could also bring back Deathless Ancient. I played it on my turn and hoped it would stick because the 2/4 would kill me. My creature stayed in play and I could possibly swing with it if I drew something else to block the 2/4. My opponent though for several turns earlier in the game kept 5 mana open so I wasn't feeling like running into Bright Reprisal (he also had Gaea's Cradle). When I finally had 3 Vampires in play again I swung with my 4/4 that died. I replayed it next turn and started swinging and I won the game a bit later.

I wasn't looking forward to game 3 but fortunately for me it went well. I was the beat down and needed to avoid some life gain and big creatures. I almost managed both but only because I had the means to sacrifice my creature being targeted with Pious Interdiction thanks to Costly Plunder and because I had Legion's Judgment for the first big Dinosaur. Even though I had everything I needed the game was way closer than I expected. I won though to my opponent's disappointment.

He was a really friendly fellow and it was nice to play against someone nice. He will need some experience and play more but will eventually be a good at Magic. He will probably remember this match since he 'got utterly crushed by me' as he told his friend^_~.

Round 5
My next opponent was on Naya Dinosaur as well even though he was more RG slashing white while my last opponent was playing GW splashing red. My opponent started with few defensive 0/3, 1/4 creatures and obviously wanted to stall till the time he could start casting his bigger threats. I played a creature after creature and unfortunately couldn't really attack or rather get through those creatures. It seemed that we would stare at each other for eternity. I just waited for my opponent to recklessly attack and I hoped I'd survive it somehow. A trick or two would certainly get rid of my whole board. At one point my opponent said that he's too lazy to count and turned all his creatures sideways. I blocked so I would kill as many creatures as I could. My opponent played a pump spell giving also trample on his biggest Dinosaur but that dealt just 18 damage or so and I survived with 1 life.

I was simply waiting for a miracle to happen...it happened my opponent decided to attack with everything not dealing lethal damage in the process thanks to my little 1/1 Lifelink Vampire tokens!

I played Call to the Feast and brought back Deathless Ancient that died in my opponent's alpha strike. I hoped I could survive a turn and start gaining some life while also attacking with the 4/4 Flyer. I survived since my opponent's top deck was a creature that was 0/3 followed by some lands. I gained some life and eventually won the game.

I don't remember much from the other game but I obviously won. I boarded in 1/2 Deathtouch creatures and Legion's Judgment because after my previous round I really felt the need to get rid of multiple big dinosaurs and 2 removal spells in my deck wasn't enough.

Later, I wondered if my deck would have been playable without my rares. Ruin Raider was stellar. Fun fact during each of the games it showed up and didn't immediately die it dealt me 16 damage on average. Dire Fleet Ravager was a card that helped me win all the games and I felt the effect was really strong which probably also meant that my deck without the rares needed a bit more to be good. Fun fact number two, this card's CIP ability dealt on every 6 damage (which means I was successful early attacker as I originally thought I would be). Majority of the players were on some Naya Dinosaurs but the top tables were mostly UB-based tempo decks.

After the event concluded we went to eat and get some coffee with my future second head for 2HG. The food, coffee and a little bit of break from the overcrowded store was good. We then returned wondering what we would play. Our decks were Naya Dinosaur and Grixis Control. Our decks were good for 3-1 but unfortunately our decks couldn't beat green avatar nor our own color screw. When the deck was doing what it was supposed to be doing everything went well. It was lots of fun and I thank Vitek for playing with me.

We collected our prizes, divided our pool and left knowing that on Monday we can start playing on Magic Online.

I arrived home afterwards wondering if lowman02 was among the living once again. When my client fired up I saw his Tradewind Rider avatar being online. We played some games of EDH and then I just passed out getting up at noon the next day.