FNM, Pre-release, and drafts OH MY!

Hello everyone! I have played an INSANE amount of Magic this weekend, and it's only going up (Legacy event tonight!). Between the FNM, Pre-release, 2 drafts, and hanging out at Mark's house, I have more to talk about then I could possible fit in one post.

FNM: 7pm - 12 am  3-2
Prerelease: 12am - 4am  1-2
Draft #1: 4am - 7am  2-1
Draft #2: 7am - 10am  3-0
Sleep: 11am - 7pm
Hang out with Mark: 7pm - 2am

Yeah, it was pretty epic. So here is the abbridged version of 4 tournament reports:

FNM

I knew it was going to be a grind to stay up all night for the pre-release, so I decided to play a brainless deck. Deck of choice? UW Level Up. I had a UB version but the deck would simply auto-fold if I never drew Venerated Teacher because Zulaport Enforcer and the other black level up creatures costs 3 or 4 to level up. White gives me Student of Warfare which is simply a beating. I honestly won a couple games with only the Student. In addition to Student, you also get Time of Heros which is insane! Here is a play that happened a couple times for me:

T1: Student of Warfare
T2: level up twice, attack (17)
T3: Time of Heroes, Skywatcher Adept, attack (12)
T4: Venerated Teacher, attack (3)

So I was simply being aggressive all night, which is a very nice departure from all the control I have been playing. Round 1 I was against Casey with his mono-green beatdown deck, but I won 2-0 on the back of Emerge Unscathed giving my huge beaters protection from green and made his life total dissapear. Round 2 and 3 I played against UW control which should be a nightmare matchup for me, but in the first match my opponent never drew any of his 4x Day of Judgement both games, so I handily won 2-0. Oh, and at one point I had 3x Time of Heroes and a lvl 7 Student of Warfare or a 10/10 double striker =D. The second round though, I got hit with DoJ 3 times and ultimately lost. Round 4 I was against Jimbo with his boros deck. Ultimately he had more control AND aggression than me so it was a bad blowout. Round 5 I was against Ron with his MG Eldrazi Ramp deck which was quite easy as he had no removal and I put him on a clock faster then I could ramp, soi quickly 2-0ed.

Pre-Release

I naturally picked Phyrexia and opened up nothing. I was sitting across from Mark, who was Mirran, and we both opened up Koth of the Hammer at the exact same time, which was epic. However, I was going for poison and he was going for damage, so his Koth was far better then mine. I played a Jund bad stuff deck and he went boros. I had no finishers in my deck, and after getting a first round by I quickly went 0-2 and dropped. Mark on the other hand finished in 15th place (Defo got 14th) out of 62, so they both won 4 packs. Theres really nothing I can say about this, because my deck had no finishers and a bad mana base. It didn't last too long...

Draft #1

I don't remember much about the actual picks, except this: I got a treasure Mage 7th pick pack one, and then I got a Steel Hellkite 4th pick in pack two. I still have no idea why it made it all the way around to me... My deck was basically Ub draw-go. I had Go For the Throat, 3x Bonds of Quicksilver, 2x Disperse, Stoic Rebuttal, and a Volition Reins. I won round 1 by stopping everything I saw, sticking a Steel Hellkite and going to town. Round 2 I was against the nuts poison deck that won the whole thing. It was unstoppable! Round 3 I was against a guy who misplayed all day, and I ultimately stuck the Hellkite and won. This draft had a ton of money in it including Sword of B+M, Green Sun's Zenith, Glissa the Traitor, Phyrexian Crusader, and Mimic Vat. My round 3 opponent was the one with the Sword and he peaced out before the backdraft with the sword, which everyone was pissed about. Regardless, I finished third and grabbed my Phyrexian Crusader. And in case you were wondering, I already have a full set of Phyrexian Crusaders. I backdrafted that 1 and traded for 3 others.

Draft #2

I drafted a really bad USA deck that had Red for Slagstorm, Shatter, and Scrapmelter, White for Sunblast Angel and Divine Offering, and Blue for Darkslick Drake and Lumingrad Drake. I somehow went 3-0 with this deck, although in game 3 of round 1 I won because of a Jedi Mind Trick/Misplay. My board was Ghalma Warden, Silver Myr, Gust Skimmer, and a 2 power non-artifact creature. My opponent was at 10 life, 1 mana up, with only Rust Tick up for blocking. I had a Vulshock Replica in hand and 6 lands. I was something like 1 or 2 life and he has 4 creatures attack me the previous turn so I have to win right now or else I lose. I tanked and then started yelling and turned all my guys sideways erratically as if I was just giving up. But then I sighed, untapped everything, started counting my mana and said something to the degree of "with the Myr I have just enough mana." At that moment, he tapped my Silver Myr with the Tick. I dropped my Replica, which activated Metalcraft, attacked for 8 and then sacked the replica to hit for the last couple damage. Rounds 2 and 3 weren't eventful and I won both 2-1. The other 4 guys in the draft did the first 2 rounds among themselves but messed up. Instead of having the 1-0s play eachother and the 0-1s play eachother, they ultimately had 2 2-0s and 2 0-2s. After solving the mess, the other 2 2-0s besides me played eachother and I played an 0-2. When the dust settled I had the bad tie breakers so I was placed in second. AKA I didn't get the Thrun. I can't even remember what I got, but it was a $10 card to play for my draft.

At this point I decided to go to Mark's house and sleep from 11am until 5 or 6pm. Upon waking up we decided that we absolutely didn't play enough Magic, and so we decided to play with actually good cards and did some standard constructed. I was once again looking to up my infect deck, and so I decided to drop green from the list. I was splashing green for Garruk, Putrafax, and Gigantiform. Garruk -4 = win. Gigantiform dude not immediatly killed = win. Putrafax = usually win. However, these effects cost 4 and 5. That is a lot for a beatdown deck. I used the new slots to try out Adventuring Gear and I used the improved mana base to run 8 fetchlands. What's the result? I almost couldn't lose! I played against UB Control, Valakut, and GW Quest. The easiest matchup was Valakut because no matter how fast he ramped it simply wasn't enough. GW was half and half. I tried to be the control deck, but it's hard to beat Vengevine without Journey or Condemn. UB Control was the hardest to play against, but was not by any means unwinnable. I think the percentage was slightly in Mark's favor, but it wasn't bad enough to warrent throwing out the deck. Here's my list:

4x Plague Myr
4x Plague Stinger
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Phyrexian Vatmother
4x Hand of the Praetors
3x Skytheriszzxsktht, the impossible to spell Dragon

3x Insquisition of Kozelik
3x Adventuring Gear
3x Go for the Throat
2x Doom Blade
2x Sign in Blood

4x Inkmoth Nexus
3x Tectonic Edge
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marsh Flats
9x Swamp

Vampire's Bite is this black's Giant Growth. I am considering cutting 3x Skittles to bring 3x Vampire's Bite into the maindeck. Skittles costs effectively 6 or 7 when the rest of the deck curves at 4.

This deck has the capability of being mind-blowingly fast! Here's the line of play that happened a couple times against Mark:

T1 - Land, Adventuring Gear
T2 - Land, Plague Myr/Stinger
T3 - Equip, Verdant Catacombs, Attck, pop fetch, hit for 5 infect.

Now, you probably have a 4th land in hand, so you can hit for at least 3 more on turn 4, or maybe you had 2 Vampire's Bites in hand and won T3? Of course you can't bank on that, because Mono-green "Oops I Win" was dreadful.... This deck has some real quality creatures that MG Infect never had like Hand, Crusader, and Vatmother. The manland was great too, although I found myself attacking with it far less than I expected. I found Tec Edge incredible against control. Once I had a board position, keepign them off their Titan mana and man-lands was very relevant and Tec Edge is naturally good against Valakut.

After several hours of playing against Mark I eventually decided to go back home for the first time since I left for work friday, 42 hours prior. Did I have enough pre-release fun for the weekend? Of course not! I wound up doing another draft this afternoon, which was quite fun. We only had 4 people, and the store had 6 boxes of pre-release product left over, so we decided to have a mono-mirran draft. All 4 of us got 2 mirran packs and 1 scars pack. Naturally, all 4 of us were in red, and 3 were in white. The odd man out went Grixis and finished 4th. I had a very redundant deck with doubles of almost everything, and a ton of battle cry cards. I also had a Red Sun's Zenith which I wound up casting 8 times in 6 games.

Because this was a 4-man draft, we just had 2 rounds. Round 1 I played Jarred in the Boros mirror. He had pulled Hero of Bladehold but didn't draw it and I won, although I can't remember if it was in 2 or 3 games. The next guy I played against for first place was INSANELY GOOD at pulling lands. I was watching his games after beating Jarrod, and he had 10 lands in play of his 17 by the time he won. Against me, the games ended with him in the double digits for lands all 3 times. By the way, top decking lands when getting hit for 5-7 a turn isn't ideal. I finished in first place and got the Hero of Bladehold and a Mimic Vat as the fruit of my labor. Everyone who drafted recieved a promotional Hero of Bladehold, and I had traded for 2 promo Heros previosly, so I had a full set: 3 promo, 1 regular. There was a guy that offered me promo for normal strait up which I accepted. I finished my set of pre-release Heroes and he got his 3rd regular one. IWe were both quite satisfied.

Getting a set of Heroes was just the icing on the cake for me though, here are the cards of note that I got this weekend:

4x Hero of Bladehold (all pre-release version)
4x Myr Turbine (1 foil)
4x Phyrexian Crusader
1x Mirran Crusader
1x Phyrexian Vatmother
2x Shimmer Myr
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (ok, I bought it, I didn't rip or trade for it)

I can't wait until the set is actually released and rocking some hot new decks. Considering I have my set of Heroes, I may run Knights at the next FNM. I have a couple Accorder Paladins and Leonin Skyhunters, so even if I don't get all the Crusaders, the deck will still be almost perfect.

Anyways, that is all for me! Stay tuned, for next time I have a combo Tezzeret deck (by the way, that beatdown deck was trash. I forgot Steel Overseer... fail...) that drops Myr Battlespheres in at instant speed for 0 mana! Yeah, I'm excited too! Until next time, stay classy!