Conflux Prerelease

Well, yesterday was the Conflux Prerelease, which I was fortunate enough to go to. I got my packs and opened them, to discover:

SEALED POOL (84 cards)

WHITE (9)
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Asha's Favor
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Gleam of Resistance
1 Lapse of Certainty
1 Scourglass
2 Soul's Grace

BLUE (15)
1 Cathartic Adept
1 Coma Veil
1 Constricting Tendrils
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Faerie Mechanist
1 Frontline Sage
1 Grixis Illusionist
1 Jhessian Lookout
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Skill Borrower
1 Tortoise Formation
1 View from Above

BLACK (9)
1 Bone Splinters
1 Drag Down
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Pestilent Kathari
1 Salvage Slasher
1 Sedraxis Alchemist
1 Skeletal Kathari
2 Voices from the Void

RED (10)
1 Dark Temper
1 Fiery Fall
1 Goblin Razerunners
1 Magma Spray
1 Soul's Fire
1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1 Toxic Iguanar
1 Viashino Skeleton
1 Vithian Stinger
1 Volcanic Fallout

GREEN (16)
1 Behemoth's Herald
1 Court Archers (foil)
1 Feral Hydra
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Godtoucher
1 Matca Rioters
1 Mosstodon
1 Naya Battlemage
1 Jungle Weaver
2 Resounding Roar
1 Sacellum Archers
1 Scattershot Archer
1 Thornling (foil!)
2 Tukatongue Thallid

MULTICOLORED (18 by shard – 6 Bant, 3 Esper, 2 Grixis, 5 Jund, 1 Naya, 1 Conflux)
1 Bant Charm
2 Jhessian Balmgiver (1 foil)
1 Kiss of the Amesha
1 Steward of Valeron
1 Valeron Outlander

1 Sphinx Summoner
1 Vectis Agents
1 Vedalken Outlander

1 Elder Mastery
1 Fire-Field Ogre

1 Carrion Thrash
1 Charnelhoard Wurm
1 Goblin Outlander
1 Hellkite Hatchling
1 Jund Charm

1 Vagrant Plowbeasts

1 Exploding Borders

COLORLESS (7)
1 Armillary Sphere
2 Bone Saw
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Esper Panorama
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Rupture Spire

It was immediately and abundantly clear that I would be playing Jund. I had a lot of blue, but it wasn't very good. I had FOUR bombs in Jund colors: Goblin Razerunners, Thornling, Feral Hydra, and Charnelhoard Wurm. My other rares were all Esper and none of them were great. At least, they certainly didn't compare to the Jund ones.

My deck was built rather quickly, since there wasn't much to think about. I just picked (what I thought to be) the best cards in my colors and threw them in. The result:

SEALED DECK (40 cards)

LAND (17)
1 Crumbling Necropolis
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Swamp

CREATURES (13)
1 Carrion Thrash
1 Charnelhoard Wurm
1 Feral Hydra
1 Goblin Razerunners
1 Hellkite Hatchling
1 Pestilent Kathari
1 Scattershot Archer
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Thornling
1 Toxic Iguanar
2 Tukatongue Thallid
1 Vithian Stinger

OTHER SPELLS (10)

1 Bone Splinters
1 Dark Temper
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Fiery Fall
1 Jund Charm
1 Magma Spray
2 Resounding Roar
1 Soul's Fire
1 Volcanic Fallout

In retrospect, running both Resounding Roars was probably not the greatest idea. I also forgot to throw in a Plains to support them, so they were just overcosted Giant Growths. They did occasionally save a guy, but I'm not sure if I would keep them in if I had to make the deck over again.

Anyway, I kept my deck that way the entire tournament, never sideboarding once. My first opponent was the legendary Adam Chambers, who was playing 5 colors. The first game I got owned by Paragon of the Amesha, which I couldn't remove until it was too late. I got several of my fatties out, but he kept removing them at just the right time. The second game he must have drawn poorly because he couldn't deal with my fatties. When he finally got his Sharuum the Hegemon out, I Bone Splinters'd it sacrificing my Tukatongue Thallid and he scooped. The third game was similar to the first in that I died. Still, beating Chambers in even one game was a nice ego boost. And I knew the second round would be easier, since my deck was actually good, and the Swiss format would pair me with another 0-1 player.

The second round I played a dude who had no idea what he was doing. His deck was 60 cards. He asked if artifacts have summoning sickness. It wasn't even a contest. I 2-0'd him, bringing me up to 1-1.

The third round I played someone who was also playing Jund, except that I owned him 2-0. I don't remember the details since it went by very quickly. I was now 2-1, and in position to place if I won in the final round.

The final round was a ballstorm. My opponent had a very dangerous Naya deck, and he kept getting Meglonoth and enchanting it with Asha's Favor, which I couldn't do anything about unless I drew the right removal. Luckily, my Pestilent Kathari kept it at bay, but I still couldn't attack into it, or play good spells while still keeping 2R open for the Kathari. The first game took forever because I kept having to make complicated decisions about how to pump my Thornling, but I lost eventually when he Soul's Fired his Meglonoth to my face. The second game I won, but I don't remember what happened. The third game I was on the verge of winning, but time was called since I had taken so long in the first game, and I was ONE POINT of damage away from killing him (and would definitely have won on the next turn). We then both ended up 2-1-1, so neither of us placed. In retrospect, I should have offered him half my prizes if he scooped, or something, but situations like that have never happened to me before, so it wasn't even on my mind. I was just focusing on the game. (Also, I thought that I COULD deal that one last point of damage, but I had miscalculated. Someone told me I could have won if I had done things a little differently, but whatever.)

After the tournament I did something unprecedented: TRADING. Nothing drastic, mind you. I heard a guy mention that he wanted a Hellkite Hatchling, and I don't really like the card much (as awesome as it was in my deck), so I traded mine to him for a Blood Cultist. Then, since I really don't care for Scourglass, and I'm never going to use Volcanic Fallout in a deck, I traded those, plus Fire-Field Ogre and a few other commons, for another Cultist, Esperzoa, and three other uncommons. Later on, another dude gave me a third Blood Cultist for free, plus a Vithian Stinger. It was good times.

So what did I learn about Conflux? Not that much. I had played a bunch of Conflux Sealed with my friend on Magic Workstation in preparation for the event, and I had seen the complete spoiler, so it wasn't like I was exploring undiscovered worlds (like the denizens of Alara). However, I did learn that Conflux decks tend to be either three-color shard-based decks, or five-color domain decks. The former are much like those in Shards of Alara; they use the shard mechanics, work well within the three colors, etc. The latter tend to be much more varied, either trying to squeeze in five-color and domain cards, or just trying to play all your best spells (usually a bit of both).

As for my own deck, personally my favorite card was Goblin Razerunners. It has the potential to get very fat, and it can either swing for massive damage or just stay back to block, and use its ability to ping your enemy to death. I almost actually got to use all three of Jund Charm's modes, too. The two +1/+1 counters mode is awesome on the Razerunners, and I used it that way once or twice. The 2 damage to each creature mode is of course very useful and I used it at least once. The remove graveyard from the game mode is usually the weakest, but there was a point where I actually would have used it if I had been paying attention. In my third game against Adam Chambers, he had Sharuum the Hegemon in his graveyard, and he played Sanctum Gargoyle. At that point, I should have cast Jund Charm to remove his graveyard from the game, but I just didn't think to. (I was pretty much screwed anyway, so I don't think it would have mattered, but it would have been a neat trick.) So that was neat. I also love Tukatongue Thallid, especially with Devour and Bone Splinters. And as a chump blocker. Such a useful 1-mana creature.

Well, that's about it. I signed up to do a Shards/Conflux draft on Valentine's Day, which should be awesome. Until then, time to work these new cards into some Standard decks! See you in two weeks.